Lost Coast: Cooskie Creek Route

King Range National Conservation Area, Arcata BLM

(purple line, map link)

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7

I looked around at how soaked everything was from the dew and decided I had enough water to cook breakfast right there (well, on a rock under the Douglas fir) while waiting for everything to dry out a little. My windbreak trees became morning shade trees, but they were still blocking some strong gusts most excellently, so I wouldn't want to trade them.

256: faint colors in the sky — Good soggy morning!

So I headed out on the faint old road to join a much better road until getting pointed off to the left at a gate. Trail gets really faint there, but it's all much easier to follow on the second pass than it was on the first.

257: sunlight on the hills — A bit sunnier, but most spots aren't much drier than they were.

258: faint trail following a fence roughly — After the short road section, follow near the fence on the faint track.

259: shallow water in the grass — If truly desperate for water and it has rained well recently, there might be a tiny pond.

I'd been told the Cooskie Creek Route was all clear, which seemed like a weird thing to claim. There were a few new trees down in the sections under Douglas firs. There were still the old ones, too.

262: south along the coast — Pondering the coastline south from above Randall Creek. The old road that allows a loop with the Spanish Ridge Trail is visible on the hill.

263: spots of orange in the grass — Poppies on the hill where the trail takes a turn.

265: hills all the way down to the beach — Feeling top of the world as the hills roll away right down to the beach.

266: more of those hills — Just follow the faint trail on down.

267: line thick with lupine — Sometimes the faint trail is best noticed by the change in vegetation. Here it is covered in little lupines.

269: furry lilies — Loads more Tolmie's pussy ears on and around trail.

271: blue flowers in the grass — Also lots of of these short larkspurs in the grass.

Trail from the gate is a bypass of private property and eventually that bypass ends as it arrives once more on old road. It's a little easier to follow as it winds downward and closer to Cooskie Creek.

273: green hills of uplands — There's a long dip down to Cooskie Creek between these hills.

274: beach and muddy ocean — A little bit of beach visible down there.

Eventually the trail drops into the trees on the way down to Cooskie Creek. It's getting crowded by living trees and blocked by falled dead trees. Some old oaks have made some old jungle gyms to get through, but people in the years past have cut away the worst of the branches to make passing only slightly difficult.

275: trees closing in on old road as trail — Look at all that new growth closing in a little further around this old road.

276: green sides to a track — Irises and sorrel and poison oak provide a thick green edge to the trail.

I was expecting a lot of poison oak toward the bottom, but it wasn't so bad. It's certainly there. I spotted where I had come up from the creek on the previous hike here. It was about 40 feet off of a long gully that cuts off the old road. People cross it via about 3 different routes or just drop down it. I decided neither drop nor middle route due to poison oak and settled on the upper route as the easiest climb. So I got to the other side and everything over there felt very familiar too. I did find the road before. I did come up it. Between a narrow, rough section and that gully, I just decided I was on the wrong route, looked around a bit more, then crawled with great difficulty up the hill through a bit of poison oak to find the road a little further on. When I could have just crossed the gully. I felt so stupid now that I've come at it from the other side. At least it's keeping the cows from continuing on. After the gully, I was very much in cow country.

277: gully cutting off the road — It's hard to see the tall wall of dirt amonog all the green of this gully. Just cross it.

278: round flowers with dark red fringes — Fringe cups.

280: trail and green and familiar trees — A last curve of road that also felt very familiar on the way to the side of Cooskie Creek.

The old route is still a little rough at the bottom. It got blocked by a fallen tree and that was allowed to get overgrown, so there's a number of other ways to the creek. I took the biggest, hopped over a log, and slogged on through. I suspect I could have hopped the rocks, but I didn't feel like it. I drank the last gulp of water, then dropped my pack to get more. I guess I had exactly the right amount from one point of view.

282: upstream on the creek — Crossing Cooskie Creek.

283: much flat grass — The expanse of meadow on the north side and a small cow muddled flat on the south side both had old camps.

284: old tree leaning over a long way — A most exquisite old buckeye at the edge of the meadow was budding all over.

The plants seemed to change with getting into the cattle area. There were a lot more invasives among the grasses.

286: pink flower — Dove's foot cranebill, an invasive geranium.

287: bright blue flowers — Western blue-eyed grass.

So I started to climb, trying to follow the signs that mark the trail wondering how it routes around the mass of subsiding land that sits north of Cooskie Creek. This worked until I passed a sign that was marked with nonsense for those coming down and nothing for those going up. There seemed to be signs of different ages and the last couple had two arrows. The first would make sense as "first a little this way, then go that way", but the second was pointing opposite of the trail. And anyway, it didn't have information for those going up. This seemed to be where the trail diverges from the old road that has lost one section to the subsiding land.

288: lots of green hills — Far up Cooskie Creek, and not so far up, to the private lands to the east.

I'm afraid that facing all the possibles of cow trudged trail, I turned back and followed the old road to the edge of the slide, looked out to the trails on the far side that I had used to get down into it before, and crossed over to them. I still don't know what the "proper" route through this section is. It might stick closer to the tributary water among the trees. There's a big trail splitting off from the road in the trees nearly to the intersection with the Cooskie Spur Route that looks like a good candidate for the other end. It also looked muddy and cow churned and less than attractive.

291: subsiding lands — Looking across the gap made by a massive landslide. If you look carefully toward the left, there's a good trail down into it. The old road went from here to a spot toward the right.

292: subsiding lands — The view from the old road on the other side. It connected straight across to that short bare cliff from a taller bare cliff on this side.

Then I was off to find the junction, which isn't really a findable thing. Maybe the piles of stuff are it? You just wander out into the flat by a corral and dropping to the left is one shelf of an old road and climbing off to the right is another. Aim for the one you want, and go! I headed for the climb.

293: rabbit speeding along — First watch the two or three jackrabbits zooming about behind the corral.

That is a very steep climb. There's obvious spots where the action of flowing water has removed chunks of road and it had to be rerouted. The mileage on the map is split at the high point beside the Gorda 2 benchmark. It indicates 1600 feet in 1.7 miles. It gets quite mellow for the last couple tenths, leaving a bit more than 1000 feet to climb over the first mile.

296: looking down the slope ot the ocean — A bit climbed, plenty to go.

297: water cut land nearby and lots of green in the distance — Across one water cut ditch to the inland mountains.

298: tree covered peaks nearby — I wonder how accessible Little Chaparral Mountain (the big green bump) and Cooskie Mountain (taller, but behind it) are via the old road on Johnny Jack Ridge. It apprears to stay on public land.

I decided to tag the high point again. It's very close to the trail anyway and it was time for a snack.

299: top of the hill — There's a very accurate GPS receiver tracking the land movement here near both the San Andreas Fault and the Cascadia Fault.

301: benchmark from 1930 — The Gorda 2 benchmark.

302: ridge and more mountains, some with fog coming up — The northeasterly views.

303: King Range — And the southerly view. King Peak (4088 feet) is the distant high point. Cooskie Mountain, just visible barely left and above Little Chaparral Mountain, is nearly 3000 feet.

I pondered the distant snow covered peaks. Mendocino National Forest, no doubt. I have still not visited it and I must fix that. Then I turned and wandered back to the road and continued northish, which is mostly west. I missed the shortcut for the junction of old roads, so got a little more look at the one out toward Cooskie Mountain. It looks pretty unused.

304: road in the grass — The old road along Johnny Jack Ridge. It doesn't go to the tree covered peaks, so there is some cross country to bag them.

But I took too long climbing that steep hill to go spurring out to those peaks. There's a lot of meadow along this section plus one fence between range lands to navigate. There were some changes in the vegetation when crossing that fence.

305: wooden steps up and over — There's a stile to navigate the fence with a very noticable bit of brush encroaching on the left and sneaky long tendrils of poison oak encroaching on the right.

307: shelf of old road — Following the shelf of once flattened land through the grasses.

308: tree covered lower areas — Sea Lion Gulch down the hill.

309: hills lowering to the ocean — More hills rolling on down toward the ocean.

310: furry purple flower — Hairy mariposa lilies (Tolmie's pussy ears) are back.

Trail finds it's way into the forested areas again. Some of it is particularly dense. This is another spot where I wasn't sure what the official route was. I followed the signs as best I could. One section stopped looking like old road and I wasn't sure where to go. The only tracks were cow, so I hoped they had followed human tracks and eventually got to trail markers once more. Then I got to a bit of the forest that even the cows didn't bother to travel, but I could see the trail a little. I think I traveled that part through meadow (and may even have seen a trail sign or two there) on my first try of this trail. Meadow was certainly a more pleasant place to walk than the dark forest. Then I got to a very green area with thorns to worry about and a small stream to cross which looked quite familiar. There's a gate to keep the cows for continuing further on the trail, but they just go around it.

311: trail sign — Getting into the greenest bit of forest. It takes a little ducking thorny things.

Then there's a bit where the official trail is definitely overgrown. Maybe it's expected to keep the cows from going down to the beach. I made a slightly blind footing way through a short section of brush where a use trail goes, then found good old road again. I was worried about the level of poison oak on the trail down, but the cows have been and there wasn't much. The brushy bit isn't working to dissuade them.

314: beach visible — Time to go to the beach once more.

316: creek crossing the beach — Looking down on Fourmile Creek and one of the cabins.

There was a most amazing wind coming through the canyon of Fourmile. When I got furthest out over the creek, the gusting wind kept trying to push me over. I was happy to get around away from the creek and only have a little bit of wind from the north.

318: trail down the cliffs — On the way down. The powerhouse building is just visible at the side of the hill ahead.

I saw what looked like it could be a campsite by Fourmile Creek (on the wilderness side), but up close it was sloped and unattractive.

The waves showing the wind, now coming from the north.

I headed back toward the lighthouse for camp. I had the whole place to myself (still shared with the elephant seals) and chose the powerhouse for shelter. There was some temptation to continue to the waterfall campsite.

322: concrete window edged view of the ocean — A couple elephant seals out the window of the powerhouse.

I did stop in the lighthouse and headed up the steps for the view from just a little higher up.

323: window pieces crossing in front of view — Looking south through the old windows for the light of the lighthouse.

326: little house ahead — The powerhouse and more to the north from the outer platform.

327: extreme rust — Rust is exteme by the ocean. This was once a very sturdy hinge.

I had another good sunset spot, though did have to stand to look out the window for it.

329: bright red spot of sun — The sun going down behind the marine layer blazed red for a minute.

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