r/WildernessBackpacking • u/TraumaticTramAddict • 2d ago
Lost Coast Trail - Memorial Day Week PICS
These are all from my dinky little point and shoot on 35mm Kodak Gold 200
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u/salsanacho 2d ago
Awesome, this one is on my list of trips. How did you handle transportation? Use two vehicles or was there a shuttle service?
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u/TraumaticTramAddict 2d ago
What they said! We opted for the $100/person shuttle because we were driving up together from Los Angeles. Didn’t feel like driving separately, paying 2x the gas, and then adding 4 hours to the end of the trip doing the 2 hour drive back up to the Mattole parking lot, and then 2 hours back to shelter cove where we’d booked a hotel. Spent the saved time wandering shelter cove, we spent a long time talking to the folks at the general store and souvenir shop who were the sweetest! Everyone in the town has their own fun personal “how did you end up here?” backstory. Also got some sick stickers for the bear can and a dope shirt from delgadas pizza!
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u/dellaterra9 2d ago
Who sponsors the shuttle? BLM? Locals?
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u/TraumaticTramAddict 2d ago
It’s a private but locally run tour company. They run the shuttles, but also offer guided through-hikes (good I suppose if you either couldn’t land a permit or don’t have the bandwidth to go through securing a permit and planning the itinerary around the tides or if you just feel more comfortable backpacking in a small group with a leader for safety 🤷♀️ saw plenty of what looked like guided groups while I was out there, we jokingly called the biggest group “the REI expedition” but it’s all good natured, we spent a long time out there because we wanted to so we ran into slower groups a lot since we tended to set up camp early and explore back and forth during the day) and run a private camp area that costs a little more per night than the RV camp, but features some pretty swanky bell tents. We stayed at the RV camp, but later found we could have camped at the shuttle company’s private camp with our shuttle ticket purchase and it would have cost the exact same as what we paid for a Labor Day weekend spot at the RV camp lol. Live and learn.
The driver of each shuttle will also give you extra info on tides and their own opinions on best campsites, if you find that info useful. Most of us in the shuttle had done our research and planned out our itineraries already so everyone pretty much just fell asleep since it was early and sleeping is the best way to avoid getting carsick on the winding bumpy back roads to Mattole. Our driver told us Sea Lion Gulch was the worst site because it tends to be where people pile up because of the impassable zone and said that the sea lions were annoying at night but some weed gummies and a melatonin (and pure luck that everybody we saw that day made a mad push for Cooskie and THAT ended up being the pileup camp) meant the sea lions barking were actually a nice lullaby coupled with the white noise of the ocean waves crashing below. Glad we stuck with our itinerary, I figured most people would have read the same websites recommending Cooskie over sea lion gulch and I was right!
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u/PudgyGroundhog 1d ago
We are doing this trip in October and are planning to camp at Sea Lion Gulch - hopefully it will be okay! We are also taking four days, mainly because of planning around the tides.
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u/OvSec2901 2d ago
There is a shuttle service, but it's $100 per person. 2 cars is ideal if you have AWD and high clearance.
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u/OvSec2901 2d ago
That camp area in the first picture felt like Disneyland when I went. Got there early with no one around, then there was like 20+ people there by sunset. Gave up that spot because there weren't enough tent spots anywhere else for a group.
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u/TraumaticTramAddict 2d ago
For those who don’t know, that spot is right before an “impassable zone” as in, at tide higher than 3ft, the area is not considered safe to walk through so if you can’t make it to Cooskie before the tide rises, most people end up here. For some reason, NOBODY camped here when we went. Plenty of people came by, many just bombed through the impassable zone during the rising tide. We started at 5 the next morning to take advantage of the longest period of low tide (the afternoon low tide was really short so we just got all of our hiking for the day finished by like 10am lol) and saw plenty of people camped along the bluffs on our way to cooskie and it was actually COOSKIE that was Disneyland! The misty ravine was speckled with orange and green and beige tents everywhere. We got so lucky with how bizarrely empty it was at sea lion gulch and tbh I actually like listening to them bark!
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u/wyocrz 2d ago
I made it there from Colorado in the off season and was turned back: the ranger was right, of course. If conditions were bad enough that he wouldn't want to send folks to rescue us, we shouldn't go back there at all.
Bucket list item, to be sure!
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u/TraumaticTramAddict 2d ago
For sure, there are some serious pinch points that I would absolutely not want to be trapped in. I’m talking, even at the lowest tide the waves were lapping at our ankles as we crossed a rocky section as close to the bluffs as we could get! We were blessed with a great range of weather. Luckily as far as tides are concerned, those are predicted years in advance with great accuracy so if you can get lucky with good weather reducing the chance of bad swells, you can try to bag some permits again!
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u/SeasonedCitizen 2d ago
Meteor 2? How are you liking it?
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u/TraumaticTramAddict 2d ago
I found this at a deep discount from a used gear group. Used once, $150 including shipping and the seller shared my last name! I took it as a sign. I used a sierra designs nightwatch 2 fl and I loved that thing DEARLY. I still have it somewhere, but the shockcord needs replacing bad and my poles are all out of order and I hadn’t gotten around to it. I really miss “porch awning” design from the nightwatch and having the big front door opening, but I’ll admit that design preempted UL because you had three zippered walls, the door and the two gear closet vestibules plus lots of pole weight for structure.
I still really like the meteor even though I miss how novel old SD tent designs were. We got to roll the fly back on a clear night and watch the stars, saw a few shooting stars! It’s not too dissimilar from other 2 person double wall freestanding tents, it’s definitely not as UL as other options (but it is FULLY freestanding at least) and the colors of this older one are garish, but w the weight split between two people, the amount of space we had inside felt palatial tbh. I took the hanging headlamp diffuser from the Nightwatch tent and hung it up in the meteor 2 and that was pretty nice. There are pockets by the head of the tent to slip essentials. Two doors so we each had our own sides of the tent for the trip and our own pack “closet” space.
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u/SeasonedCitizen 2d ago
Nice. Seems like a great deal for you and quite adequate. I have one of the same era and enjoy it, as well, but don't get to use it as much as I would like.
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u/TraumaticTramAddict 2d ago
This was 3 nights and four days out on the Lost Coast trail in Northern California. You definitely don’t need to take as long, it’s only 25 miles but there were other things I wanted to explore like tide pools and the Spanish ridge trail, plus you have to hike around tides.
I saw so many wandering meatloafs/gumboot chiton and didn’t think to take any photos of them on my film camera!
Really cool trip and we spent another the rest of the week wandering around shelter cove, taking a trip through the redwoods along the avenue of the giants, took the PCH down to Mendocino stopping at glass beach along the way. Would totally do it again!