I wrote in my notes that it was very cold the night before and I slept fitfully, waking up often. I had added an extra layer by wrapping the space blanket around my cocoon of breathable bivy and reflective bivy. It was good I had picked up the extra layer in Anchor Bay but I needed something more. I packed up and took everything in the bathroom, which didn't have electricity but was warmer than being outside, to get organized and thaw out my feet. I've never been officially diagnosed but have had the symptoms of Raynaud's Syndrome since high school. If it's even slightly cold my feet go numb. I've been walking on the beach in seventy degree weather and my feet have gone numb. In Raynaud's cold triggers spasms of the arteries in the extremities, which reduces blood flow. I woke up with numb feet that morning and was trying to warm them with my hands in the restroom.
Only a few minutes later a policeman opened the door and jumped back when he saw me. I know I must have looked homeless, and there was probably no one in that bathroom at six am normally. He backed away as if from an animal and asked in an overly soothing tone, "you hiding out there?" I explained about my run and about my Raynaud's Syndrome, and his expression softened. He asked for my ID, which I gave him, and then offered to let me warm up in his police vehicle while he ran the ID. I sat in the car while he looked up my license. I told him I'd be fine if he needed to use the bathroom. When he came back he told me I should stop at the Outdoor Store in Fort Bragg and get a waterproof jacket and neoprene socks (I had never heard of them). He said the Hot Shots -- the firefighters who are the best of the best -- wear them, and that they would keep my feet warm as I went north. Then he asked why I hadn't started in Oregon and gone south. Yes, I agreed, this probably would have been a better idea. I would have been moving into a warmer climate as the weather got cooler, would have been able to take advantage of the winds that blow south (already I had run into strong winds that had made walking extremely slow), and would have been running home so my southern California friends could have been waiting for me at the border.
He was worried for me. I told him he wasn't the first police officer to stop me, and he smiled. He saw my SPOT device and said I should make sure nothing happened to me in the Lost Coast section of the trail, it was hard for police to get out there. It would take them a long time to reach me if I needed rescuing, and the area fell between Mendocino and Humboldt counties, so it sounded like there was no force specifically assigned. I showed him some of the maps of my route ahead and he told me to watch out on Usal Road, that unsavory characters fleeing the law hung out there. He said that from Usal Road to the end of the Lost Coast Trail I was "on my own," essentially. I knew he wasn't trying to scare me, just help me out. And I promised him I would get extra socks and a jacket. I thanked him and went on my way.
Outside of the car the cold air was jarring. I ate some trail mix, took a few photos of the beautiful beach, and started jogging to stay warm. At the end of the beach section there was a trail leading up to the highway. I remember the highway curving and dipping from there to the town of Elk, roughly 13 miles away. I wrote in my notes that a woman gave me a fist pump from her car, a semi driver honked his horn for me, and I got a peace sign from a guy driving a bus pulling a jeep. People were friendly here. I knew I was entering pot-growing territory, and people had said they were harvesting plants. Is that who these friendly drivers were? I had also heard talk of growers protecting their land with guns, and was told to get away ASAP if I ever found myself in a marijuana field. The drivers here at least seemed nice though.
I made it to Elk, population 208. It would have been neat to photograph the population and elevation sign for every town I ran through, and to have taken a tally of the number of people who stopped to ask if I needed a ride every day. Just before the historic Elk Store, I met a man with a running shirt who said hello and asked about my journey. I had seen a number of people on bikes carrying bags of gear, who looked like they were making a similar trek, but hadn't seen other runners like myself. Runners must be relatively uncommon. He said that he lived in the area and was building a new house, but that it would take four years at least with all of the environmental regulations in northern California. We talked about the route ahead and he said I was going to love the Lost Coast, he had hiked it before. He too warned of the impending cold weather, and said that northern CA was about to enter its rainy season. I told him I was hoping to reach Oregon in two weeks. He said there was no chance. Which reminded me of how someone else had told me that my mileage goals were something I might have aimed for when I was younger, but not now. Ahhhh if only they knew about the world of ultra running and hiking. I had told the first one about Don, a 79 year old ultra runner I had crewed for at a six day race in Hungary, who had completed a 1,000 mile race in just under fifteen days when he was in his 50s. I thought about that often, it had taken me so much longer to cover 1,000 miles.
The small Elk Store had kombucha, specialty chocolate, vegan bars, and a deli -- where the barista made my third custom vegan sandwich of the trip. He was so nice. I asked a woman sitting at the only table in the store if I could share it with her, she obliged. Her husband came to join us. We got to talking and I told her about my trek. She said she had met a group of cyclists at the store once who had gone from the southernmost tip of South America and were headed for Canada. She sent her husband to buy her a beverage and while he was gone she gave me all of the cash she had. She wanted me to have it for my journey. When he got back she gave me her email address and said I should let her know how I was doing, that she would worry about me otherwise.
Their care inspired me and I headed out of Elk with renewed energy, stopping only to mail the hat from Kim home to myself at the post office there. I remember jogging fast for the next section, listening to music and appreciating the tall trees. I crossed a beautiful bridge before coming to the town of Albion. I reached the small store and gas station there just before it closed and the sun set. It had camping supplies, although no neoprene socks. I picked up a new emergency bivy and an extra emergency blanket. The old emergency bivy had ripped and I had been carrying a roll of duct tape I bought in Jenner that I had used to patch it. I threw away the old bivy and left the duct tape. The store had had Munk Pack snacks, which I had seen advertised by an ultra runner from Oregon I follow. I must be getting close. As I checked out the woman at the counter wondered what I was doing. After I explained she offered me a ride, haha no, I told her I wasn't allowed to take any rides. Another man in line, dressed all in black, carrying a hot dog, told me "right on." He was proud of me.
Outside the store I organized my purchases and another customer asked if I was having a yard sale. A man getting gas, Mark, had overheard about my trip. It turned out he was into hiking, had done quite a bit of it. When he heard my last name he knew I had Scandinavian ancestry (Danish). His name sounded familiar and I half wondered if he had seen a recent post I made about being Scandinavian. He looked at me so knowingly, like he was confident I would make it, and impressed. Like he understood what I was doing. He said he would await my story in National Geographic.
In Elk I had arranged to stay at the Mendocino Grove camp, the hotels in the area were too expensive, even camping there was expensive. I ran on determined and excited to make it to a safe designated camp. This was in fact another glamping resort, and the owner had said I would be able to check out portable devices to charge my phone overnight. I had been using the solar charger to charge my headlamp and phone during the day, and it was working well for the headlamp and helped keep the phone topped off during the day, but I still needed to charge it for a solid few hours to maintain power. My external battery pack also needed a long charge time to reach capacity.
I ran on. By the time I got close to town it was dark, and I still had a trail section through Van Damme State Park to complete. With the reward of a real camp, hot showers, and breakfast to look forward to, I kept up a good pace. I struggled at first to find the entrance to the trail, combing the guidebook. The trail started just after a hotel that had apparently changed names since the book was written, but looked more well established than the book had made it out to be. It was easy to follow, even at night, skirting bluffs that must have been beautiful in the daytime, except for the final segment.
The book had said to follow the fence to a hole and climb through it. That sounded precarious, even more so given that the book was written in the 90s. The fence described sounded wooden, but the fence I saw was metal. The trail thinned as I approached the fence. I knew I was pointed in the direction of the road and following the fence would get me to it, so I followed it. Soon however, the trail fractured and tall grass was everywhere. Animal trails. I fought through it, burrs sticking to everything. I looked back at the GPS map on my phone. I had covered hardly any ground in the last twenty minutes and there was no clear trail. The animal paths would end in patches of flattened grass, and I tried to keep going back to the fence, but trees and tall grass began to impede the path along the fence. I looked for a way over the fence, on the other side was a beautiful asphalt bike path next to a road. Finally, I spotted a tree stump on the other side and hoisted myself over, stepping on the stump before jumping to the ground.
It was easy running from there to the road next to Highway 1 near Mendocino Grove. I took a chance, betting that I would be able to find a way up the high embankment from the scenic road next to the highway to the highway itself, so that I wouldn't have to backtrack in the morning. Sure enough, there was a path at almost the perfect spot leading up from the road to the highway. The camp was a quarter mile detour up a hill, I hadn't realized, and I would have to use a phone there to call the owner to get me the charging devices, but it worked out. I fixed myself a mix of herbal teas from the tea station and grabbed a few towels from the bathroom for extra warmth before heading off to camp. My site was surrounded by a group of redwoods and I fell asleep gazing up at a patch of stars circled by foliage silhouettes.
Trail Notes:
-Guidebook said at high tide, especially in winter, may not be able to get around rocky point just west of Little River ford, so took alternate route near Van Damme Beach parking lot.
-Trail disappears near fence at the north end of Van Damme State Park.
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