Locomotoring

We drove up from Bay Area to Shelter Cove for a few days to catch the ocean and the night sky. We binge watched the Great British Baking show, watched the Pacific Ocean from the comfort of the living room of our AirBnB and hiked a few hikes in the Humboldt County. The first one had to be part of the Lost Coast trail by the beach.

We started from Black Sands Beach trailhead near us, and walked up north to where Horse Mountain Creek runs to the beach. It is only about a couple of miles from the trailhead and protected from the rise of tides. Thankfully, the fog was minimal that morning which we later realized wasn’t to be taken for granted, the rest of our days were shrouded in fog. The sand is indeed black, the stones are black and they eventually grind down to the black sand. The ocean waves are strong and the white foam of the crashing waves dazzle against the black sand. Our going was slow, no more than 2 miles an hour, our boots sank in the sand or clattered on the rocks. It is monotonously beautiful meeting of ocean, rocks and sky. Sounds of crashing waves and sea gulls filled the air. The sea air filled our lungs and where there was sea weed left behind by waves, the smell grew stronger. Our monotonous view was broken a few times by creeks coming down the mountain, these formed small waterfalls before disappearing into the sand and leaving behind colorful green, yellow and orange algae in their path.

Periodically, we sat down on a bleached driftwood and shook out the sand and pebbles from our shoes. We met a few other hikers on our way, a couple of day hikers going south to north like us and a handful of back packers were wrapping up their north to south lost coast pilgrimage.