Lost Coast: Windy Point

King Range National Conservation Area, Arcata BLM

(red line, map link)

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

Well, an air fryer was obtained and even though this one doesn't have a "dehydrate" button, it turns out beans dehydrate well at 180°F, taking only about 3 hours for a pound. In 3 days, I had 3 pounds of various varieties and it was suddenly much easier to think about going out backpacking. I could try out the Lost Coast Trail the way everyone tells me it should be experienced, then wander back my own way because that shuttle is way too expensive and there's more to see than the beach. The tides would be super low in a couple days and the only weather a brief storm zipping past mostly in the night. Clouds (and storms) make things more interesting. Yeah, that's how it works, right? I decided on doing the biggest loop, so after pounding along the beach from north to south (as the all too many hiking guides tell me I absolutely must or there will be WIND blasting me IN THE FACE at 40MPH the WHOLE WAY, bringing with it SAND and SPRAY and it will be awful), I would come back to Horse Mountain Creek and climb up to the road, then walk road, trail, road, trail, route all up high getting back to Fourmile Creek.

Along the stunning drive in on Mattole Road overlooking the Loleta Bottoms, especially Cannibal Island north of the Eel River, where I was last hiking.

They'll tell you that you MUST get permits on release day, the first of October for the next calendar year, as early as possible. This is mostly true if you want to go on Friday and somewhat for Saturday. The weekend warriors want to arrive at Black Sands, the southern trailhead, get a $300 or more per person shuttle ride to Mattole Beach, then zoom down the coast in 2-3 days. They make Fridays hard to get, but I've noticed that Tuesdays and Wednesdays can hold out quite a while even in prime seasons. But here's a secret. BLM hold back 15 permits per day for organized groups to grab. If no groups have gone for them, these permits get released on the first of each month for April-September. (Those other months just don't expect organized groups at all.) Oh, and here's another secret. At 1 week to go, people get an email to print out their permit and this is the point that a lot of them will cancel if they decide they can't do it after all. You can often pick up a few permits in the next week, even if the weather is nice. There were open spots for the next week excluding Friday. I just needed to decide what day to start.

The other Black Sands Beach from Mattole Road looking south to Punta Gorda.

Adding up all the mileages on the map, I had settled on a 70 mile loop. It's only 25 miles on the beach and overland bypass trails, but about 40 miles to follow mountain and stream up and over King Peak and the Gorda 2 benchmark and down again. It's a commitment. I had one more concern. I wanted to finish before May 15th, when the daily permit number jumps from 30 to 60 and it gets a bit more crowded. I decided on a Sunday entry and grabbed one of 15 available permits. However, since the low tide was early in the morning, I actually wanted to get there Saturday and camp out before the wilderness. There's an exclusion zone around Mattole Campground, the wilderness starts at Fourmile Creek, and there's a patch of private land on the north side of the creek, but anywhere in between is technically available for dispersed camping. I was aiming at Windy Point.

Mattole Beach looking north to Cape Mendocino and Sugarloaf Island.

I had to call up and get road information and they were typically really conservative about it. You might have to be slow and careful, but we have had 2WD vehicles down there, I was told. It was beautifully worked except for a brief, rocky section reduced to one lane where the river flooded it for a week over this very wet winter. I came upon this one rough spot at the same time as a Tesla sedan and yielded to the uphill vehicle, which had no trouble across the rocks. My go-cart of a car did fine too. They usually have nice maps in a map box, but all I found was last month's tide chart stuffed in there. There's trail through the dunes, but I decided to poke along the beach on this stunning day. A chill wind was coming from the south to offset the bright sun's heat a little too much, but my light long sleeves were helping bring it all nearly to a comfortable balance.

South along the beach.

Murky tidepools high above the water at the moment.

More pools, these much clearer.

The tidepools can be quite beautiful even if the animal life in this one seems to be one very large green sea anemone with a huge stalk and waving tentacles.

I wandered beach and up on rocks and eventually found the best of the tide pools. These went quite deep and held some purple spined echinoderms.

There are five pacific purple sea urchins tucked into the holes in this rock.

Striped shore crabs are fun to find, too.

The dunes I was skipping were a carpet of flowers, or at least as much so as dunes get. At first it was purple with silky beach pea. Then patches of yellow wallflowers and white blooms of strawberries.

Dunes and hills, the first covered in purple and yellow and white flowers.

The tidepools haven't got the only animals around. Barking was coming from sea lions on a distant, tall rock. A bit of sand burst in front of my foot as a crab scrambled out. There's a couple little streams that come down to the sand and one of them even had an otter hanging around!

Northern kelp crab that was hiding in the sand.

You can tell they are sea lions even from a distance by the constant barking and the way their rear flippers can tuck in under them.

A soggy river otter wandered out, then noticed me and turned back to go under a bush.

Windy Point is around 400 feet up. There were once roads going up both north and south of it. The south road is still a driveway for the bit of private property, which has two cabins on it. The north one seems to be unmaintained except that the pastured cows above come down it sometimes. It is not included on the provided map, but easy enough to spot. I slid past the gate at the bottom and started up. There are little streams and seeps along the way and the cows had made sure they were muddy, but nothing overtopped my shoes. It's actually a nice little climb.

Old road once passed up and over Windy Point. (Actually Punta Gorda and Windy Point is a little higher and north, but it gets called Windy Point for various simplicities.)

Lots of flowers are hiding in the hills, too.

The Douglas irises come in big clumps with some particularly nice arctic butterber nearby.

I had seen four cars up on the point earlier, but apparently they were all just enjoying the day. When I got there, only a little AWD Rav4 was left, freshly abandoned by a pair of backpackers probably headed for the lighthouse for the night. I wondered how easily that would get back up the steep hill. And was it windy? Not a bit.

The barrier at the top is rusting through, but it's not the only thing keeping the cars off.

Menzies' baby blue eyes hiding in the grassy green.

I found a nice rock for cooking and a nice slightly higher than the ground around it spot for sleeping on the flat below the parking area. I'd brought a one pound hexagonal tarp for shelter and played at putting it up for the night, set to keep a north-northwest wind at bay.

Not much to see of the sunset behind a distant fog bank.

Unfortunately, the wind came up after the sun set going in exactly the opposite direction I was set against. It was pulling out too much heat to let me be comfortable, so I finally got up and dropped the high side of the tarp and lifted the low side. It was actually pretty quick and easy to do and soooo much more comfortable and warm once done. Half an hour later, the rain started. So soooo much more comfortable set the right way around.

same trip, next day ⇒





*Lost Coast album*


©2023 Valerie Norton
Written 14 May 2023