According to the ”The World Almanac and Book of Facts,” there are 12,383 miles of coastline in the United States. Thanks to the efficiency of various governmental organizations, virtually every mile of this coastline is traced by some kind of road, scenic concrete walkway, cart path, superhighway or trail designed to maximize access to scenery and minimize inconvenience.
Such byways tend to be the most direct route to pretty postcards, distracting sunsets and the best hot dog kiosks. But in Northern California there is one exception to the rule, one place where the highway builders couldn`t go. It`s a small stretch of shoreline that goes by the suitably dramatic moniker of the Lost Coast.
The coast gets its name from its lack of roads because the formidable team of engineers who strung California`s coastal Highway 1 got within 300 miles of the Oregon border, then found themselves stymied by the 4,000-foot peaks of the King Mountain Range, the highest coastal mountain range in the United States.
At the logging town of Leggett, the engineers called it quits and turned inward, leaving a triangle of coast empty and opening the door for the government to create the King Range National Conservation Area.
But the road-builders might have tried harder had they realized what they were missing: 35 miles of some of the most dramatic, wildlife-filled, whale-frequented, unspeakably deserted shoreline in the country.
Most of the few visitors who make it to the Lost Coast come during summer, but late winter and early spring are equally fine times for a visit. The weather isn`t as good (read: rainy), and storms occasionally blow in from the north, but there are redeeming factors, among them, the several thousand gray whales that migrate south along the coast from December to February, then back north from March to April. The whales travel in small pods, feeding on the shrimplike krill that live in the shallows, as they make their yearly commute from Alaska to Baja California.
Spotting the whales isn`t difficult, particularly with binoculars, although matters can be helped by hiring a private charter from Eureka, a town of 28,000 some 80 miles north of the Lost Coast.
”Some of the whales get kind of playful,” says Dennis Pecaut, who has run King Salmon Charters, weather permitting, out of his 36-foot fishing boat, Moku.
Other animals seem to like it equally well, such as the sea lions, which have set up breeding grounds on several beaches along the Lost Coast, and the mink, black bear, porpoises, pelicans and occasional Roosevelt elk that perhaps wandered down from Redwood National Park.
The wrecks of several ships dot the shoreline, shared by the battered concrete ruins of a lighthouse that kept ships off the shore from 1911 to 1951.
There are grassy headlands on which to pitch a tent, and small canyons that wend through the King Range at about two-mile intervals, supplying fresh water and a shelter of ferns and hardwood forest.
Although the Lost Coast is off the beaten track, there are several ways to get there. Hike south from the town of Mattole River, or north from the town of Shelter Cove, or take one of the several Jeep tracks that cut to the heart of the Lost Coast. No matter which is chosen, it would be good to take along ”The Hiker`s Hip Pocket Guide to the Humboldt Coast” by Bob Lorentzen (Bored Feet Publications, Mendocino, Calif., 1988).
