I awoke to voices and thought it might be the people from the tents I had seen the night before. I looked around. No sign of the tents but two hikers were nearby. I said hello and packed up as we talked. It was 10:30am, the morning low tide hiking window was supposed to end at 10. If I couldn't make it past the first low tide segment I would have to wait until 9pm and try to do both segments plus the miles in between them before the tide came in to finish the second half of the Lost Coast Trail today. I looked down, a Clif bar was laying on the log right beside the place where I slept. The people in the tents must have left it for me...
The two hikers began offering me more food, four different protein bars! It was a nephew and his uncle. They liked my light pack, and the uncle said he wanted to do more coastal hiking, this was one of his first such hikes. He said they had seen a human skull and a beached whale up ahead (I never saw either!). I was reminded that people had died on that trail, trapped by the incoming tide. I told them I better get going, they had come from the north and said the tide looked like it would be passable for another hour at least.
I ran up the shore, approaching the section that would soon be impassable. As I saw hikers coming my way I asked them if the beach behind them was still okay to hike. All confirmed it was. After a few miles I came to a campsite near a creek and planned to stop there and wait for the night's low tide. A couple taking a break encouraged me to go ahead though, saying it would be safe at least until the next creek or camp, where I could duck out if I needed to.
I made it a ways further and saw a group of hikers, they said the only hard part would be getting around the point up ahead, and then I should be careful not to miss a trail up to the bluffs. After that I could take the bluff trail and it would be clear until the second low tide only section, which was miles ahead. I ran for it. I hurried around the rocky point and sure enough, not far after it there was a faint trail leading off the beach. I climbed up and sat down. I had made it. Hopefully everyone I had seen on my way there was okay too. I took the next eight or so miles slowly, knowing I had ample time before the tide would be low enough to hike the next tricky segment.
With the sun out it was hot, the predictions I had heard must have been right. It did feel ten degrees warmer than the previous week. Luckily there were plenty of streams and I could refill my water bottle as often as I liked. People were amazed that I only carried one, and sometimes two, water bottles on the whole trail. But in the south there were drinking fountains everywhere and in the north there were streams. It was perfect. I stopped to take photos of a group of deer walking through a stream bed. My blister was hurting more and more. I decided to try to lance it again. This time there was no blister fluid, only pus. I started to worry it could be infected. I had washed it with alcohol in Shelter Cove and purchased more antibacterial pads. I tried to clean it frequently and applied more tea tree oil chapstick and Tiger Balm. Jogging let my foot hit the shoe in such a way that the blister didn't bother me, so I tried to jog.
I passed a house and thought to myself that it must be amazing to live in such a place. Just then a man passed me walking and I said hello. He was visiting the people in the house! Lindley, and he was an age group national champion triathlete. He lived in Oregon, I told him Oregon was my promised land.
I ran on, finally the sun began to set and I approached the next problem segment. The tide still looked too high to move forward, and I was afraid it could be even higher further on. There was a trail at the back of a creek nearby leading up to the bluffs. I tried walking it, thinking there could be a bluff trail, but the trail ended at a steep hill. I went back down and decided to reorganize my things, put on warmer clothes, and take a nap over the next hour, as I waited for the waves to recede. A light mist began to fall and I laid down under my poncho, setting my alarm.
My notes say, "Meditated, rested under poncho, asked God purpose of journey, looked at stars, thought about aliens, monks in Big Sur who live in such beautiful place, beautiful out here, nice to stop and appreciate instead of being scared all the time running as fast as I can. Lightly misted now cold breeze hopefully will stay warm and get past next two sections."
I got up with my alarm, I might have slept ten minutes, but resting was refreshing. There now appeared to be enough room to walk between the waves and the cliffs. The mist again impeded my vision, the headlamp now only capable of illuminating a two foot radius. Up ahead, more rocky points. I do wonder if there wasn't a bluff trail that I missed in this section, because I had to hoist myself over slippery rocks. I found myself in another patch of live turbans. I consulted my PDF guidebook and tried to find the places with the option of a bluff trail instead of the beach. One I couldn't find, maybe it was farther back in the riverbed than I had looked. After maybe five or eight miles I did find a bluff trail, it seemed safer than walking the beach and I tried to stick to it. It would go down to a beach and then pick back up again on the other side. The low visibility made following it hard sometimes though, and I had to point my headlamp at the ground and track footprints.
After following a patch of such footprints, then getting turned around, I was so relieved to find another bluff trail that I took a picture of it. But had a feeling the excitement wasn't over. I pointed my headlamp up and saw two eyes staring back at me from the hillside next to the trail ahead. It looked like a mountain lion. I tried saying "Hey Mountain Lion," clapping, playing music through my phone, nothing seemed to work, it just stared at me. Frustrated, tried, scared, I thought about at tactic I had heard worked well on dogs at the Last Annual Vol State 500k road race, screaming profanity. "GET THE F*** AWAY!!!," I yelled at the top of my lungs. It ran! Finally!! And I walked down the trail...
Later on I saw what looked like another mountain lion, farther away, and yelled at it to get away, it also ran. I thought about how some of my friends in the Trail Crashers had been worried about mountain lions at the San Diego 100, our first 100 miler (well, I ended up doing two other 100s first). I planned to do the race solo and they all gave me a hard time about it, including taunting me about the mountain lions. I hated asking people to crew and pace me. I didn't see anything dangerous about doing the race solo, there would be plenty of people on the course. I rolled my eyes and did the race solo, I was fine. But now I wished I had the invention we had all talked about, a button you push that inflates a blow up bear behind you.
As I walked on I heard deep toned animal sounds coming from the ocean, maybe elephant seals. Finally, at nearly four in the morning, I arrived at Mattole Campground, the end of the Lost Coast Trail. I couldn't find an open camp so laid down in a patch of grass already matted, hidden from the next campsite by shrubbery. I set my alarm to wake me a few hours later.
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