West of the West over here is Humboldt County and its Lost Coast. California’s wettest and remotest wilderness is five hours and 280 miles north of San Francisco, with nothing but ocean until Japan.
You may have heard we’re losing our water supply over here. Our aquifers and underground “water-bank” have almost dried. Yet Humboldt’s “Emerald Triangle” is still neon-green and lonesome, enshrining one of the state’s most iconic hikes – the Lost Coast, the defining fringe of the “triangle” where ocean meets mighty trees.
That still makes the Lost Coast drier than, say, Donegal.
My favourite naturalist Tom Stienstra writes: “The Lost Coast and people who live here seem to be in a different orbit than the rest of California, and that is exactly why people like to visit . . . It’s called the ‘Lost Coast’ because nature has isolated the area, shielded on all sides by natural boundaries, penned by Pacific tides (watch out, sneaky waves) and King’s Range.”
Bigfoot was rumoured to be here but we never found him, just folksy-jokey garden statuary. We did see wildlife running wild.
Ahem, and we spotted animals as well: a loping brown otter utterly unfazed by the nearness of us. Seals! Deer! Skunks! Hippies! Bikers! Doh! as Homer would say!
Tom Stienstra was writing in partial code, when discussing the countercultural population of the “Triangle”.
With coastal rocks and 5,000-foot peaks and firs one side and redwoods on the other, Humboldt straddles three layered tectonic plates. Its shaky geology nurtures a discrete biology and unique counterculture.
As you’ve perhaps heard, this is the last holdout of hippyness and dippyness. Survivors of 1967’s Golden Gate Park’s Love-In flocked, and a cannabis economy rules, adding grittiness to the benign mix.
Stienstra is a bearded woodsman who lives, appropriately in tiny Weed, and is author of California Hiking, bible for outdoorsy types.
His account of the Lost Coast hike of 25 miles of empty beaches is on page 74, and not to be missed. Nor is the trail itself. “Some parts . . . are impassable during high tides,” he warns, advising strong waterproof boots and tides tables.
“Cotton kills,” he intones; damp, chilly undies, he means. Hiking from north to south from Mattole (near Petrolia, where Alexander Cockburn, Claude’s son lived, RIP) is warmer: winds are behind. Shuttle a car at either end. Don’t forget a spade for burying waste.
Then trace the coastal curves of your inmost thoughts over three days. All is absolutely empty except for foaming breakers (watch those tides), spouting whales, cavorting seals, and hungry bears – black, not grizzlies, thank god. But you need to be prepared. There’s one main reason why at the last ballot Humboldt voted against legalising cannabis sativa (known here as “ma-ha-ra-wee-gee”). Bumper stickers urged “Vote No Save Our Way of Life.”
Cannabis economy
The belief, as the Anderson Valley Advertiser and local blogs explained, was that the bottom would drop out of the billion-dollar cannabis economy – one-third of the county’s annual income.
Also, thinks local expert Richard Stenger, "California wants to lead, never follow." A local sheriff tried to clean up ganja trading, but not successfully. What Breaking Bad-style TV mini-series could be crafted around this local Humboldt Noir scene?
But no matter, after Colorado and Oregon’s tax gains, California will legalise cannabis at 2016’s election, and resulting harvests of spiked brownies, truffles and other edibles will fill state coffers. Or will they?
Sweet potato fries
Yet peace always comes dropping slow here, mystic or stoned or wine-addled. At The Cove, a hotel hangout overlooking breakers, we downed local calamari, crab, sweet potato fries and steaks, with riveting Whitethorn Pinot Noir.
Local winemaker Tasha McKee blends Pinots on her family farm using grapes from further south – grapes do need morning fog, explains Tasha (a graduate of the UC Davis Viticulture school), but need afternoon sun.
Tasha grew up with the 12 Trappist nuns of Redwoods Monastery as “her aunties”. Originally a Belgian house, they host retreats and sell honey here and they’re booked out months ahead. (Cistercian mystic Thomas Merton vowed to build a monastery here when he visited – on Needle Rock, near Shelter Cove. He died before he could, but he’s commemorated here.)
Tasha also runs Sanctuary Forest, a wilderness conservation trust. An impressive woman warrior, she educates about Mattole River’s vanishing watershed and sponsors water stewardship – governor Jerry Brown should appoint her water czar.
Inspired by Tasha’s words and winetasting, we plodded the black sands of Shelter Cove, and mountain firs. Then on inland, through the mighty Avenue of the Giants with 300-foot-high thousand-year-old redwoods of cathedral-calm and trees you can drive through. Four rare albino redwoods lurk – so shy we never saw them. We did find architect Julia Morgan’s curiously lovely Hearthstone monument – four chimneys in the woods.
Final note for insomniacs: you’ll never sleep better than you will up here, if you bring earplugs. Great old wayside biker bars and inns thrive. But the beds at Benbow Inn – scones for tea, cheeseplates of distinction, a river to swim in – will afford the most peace. Clark Gable stayed here and fished. And no, it’s not Benbow as in Treasure Island – it was founded in the 1920s by the Benbow family.