a place where you will not feel lost …
When you hear folks refer to this coast, they typically mean the 25 mile Lost Coast Trail stretching 4 days 3 nights from Mattole Beach to Shelter Cove. However, if you start from the very southern tip of the wilderness area covered by this trail at Usal Beach, you will encounter a much more rugged and lesser populated area of this coast.
We stumbled upon this when we realized the the more popular trail had areas in which you can only pass upon low tide conditions. During Labor Day weekend when we wanted to take this trip, low tide happened around 6am and 6pm. This did not click with the leisurely schedule we had in mind for a long relaxing weekend in nature. Upon looking further, we discovered there is a beach at the southern tip of Lost Coast that you can drive down to in an AWD/4×4 vehicle. We took this challenge on and had a grand time. Check out our photo journal below.
Day 1 – an adventure down to the beach for camping
Road down to the beach was very windy and narrow.
It wasn’t just ocean views; you pass thru the forest too.
The bumpy drive down was well worth it to arrive on a semi-secluded beach …
and have a relaxing drink.
We took it upon ourselves to do a small portion of the Lost Coast trail while we were here.
Arriving on a buff …
with breathtaking views.
After the “hike”, we kicked off the evening with a couples beach BBQ …
with ginormous pieces of steak.
(which deserved a photo ops encore)
To walk off the food coma, we took a post dinner stroll on the beach …
and competed on a javelin event.
I won.
To top off the day, we watched the stars while listening to the waves.
Day 2 – heading out
Waking up from our campsite nested in birch trees (since the beach gets windy at night) …
… we packed up and had breakfast smoothies on the beach before heading out.
Thorsten obviously had a little too much fun 😉
It wasn’t just all about the camp. The drive down to SF was equally epic.
We stopped by North Coast Brewery to realize the array of beer they brewed.
Silly me, I never made the connection until then that Prankster was brewed here.
Afterward, we stopped by glass beach in Fort Bragg.
It was real.
This concludes our labor day weekend road trip.
Are you ready to take yours Here?
Share with us your experience!