Posted on 10/11/2026 8:21:12 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Where I’ve been, followed by some brief thoughts about politics and news.
Trying to act on my much-repeated message that the world is crazy but you don’t have to be, I just jumped on an invitation to hitchhike on an old friend’s backcountry permit. It’s an area I’ve been camping in for decades, but not a part of it that I’ve walked, so I went online and read about the place we were going before we started a few days of backpacking. Then I went there, and I’m still not convinced that the Internet connects very well to real life. But let’s try.
The strangest thing about walking California’s really-no-kidding remote and rugged Lost Coast, at the southern end of Humboldt County, is that long stretches look like this:
If you read the tide chart carefully and time your passage correctly, you have a few feet between the ocean and the cliffs, scrambling over rocks. Then, every couple of miles, a creek has carved a canyon into the cliffs, and that long, narrow, rocky beach opens up onto one of these:
So when you’ve made your miles for the day, or when the ocean decides you’re done and the waves reach the cliffs, you climb up into a canyon.
And then the ocean locks you in, as sure as a jailer with a key. The tide seals those canyons. You don’t have to wonder if there are any other hikers coming in tonight, and it doesn’t matter what you think your schedule is. So you sit there.
I was trying to think of a comparable experience, and I’m drawing a blank. The world that’s available to you is about two hundred feet of slot canyon. Bring a book. You have to wait for the gap to re-open. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to wait anymore. We pushed the edges of the tide chart a bit, but you sit until you see a path:
In the meantime, you look around.
If you happen to, I don’t know, fall into the creek, don’t worry: You have a few hours to dry out.
The good news is that there’s a place to get coffee.
Other long stretches of the Lost Coast Trail look like this:
These parts lead you to tent-friendly fields just off the ocean, covered with driftwood from big storms that broke past the normal high-tide line.
The driftwood is full of small creatures who want to sneak up on your breakfast, but helpful locals will come and clear rodents from your campsite as a free service.
They take this job quite seriously, and spend whole mornings working on it. Still, other areas remain crowded.
In the summer, this trail apparently gets pretty congested. In October, it very much did not, and the only moment when there were a bunch of people came when we passed the big house in the middle with the airstrip. Apparently there were a very few people who declined to sell to the Bureau of Land Management when this land transitioned to federal ownership, and they ended up with the most remarkable inholdings in the country.
Emerging from all of this silence and a long morning watching a coyote thoughtfully chew up rodent after rodent after rodent while I drank coffee thirty feet away, the news landed very strangely. A senate candidate who loves trans kids vanished for a couple of weeks, or not quite a couple of weeks, and then when he showed up in public again his campaign communications guy announced that it’s a conspiracy theory to notice he’s been gone. At the same time, a joint local-federal task force in Los Angeles arrested a bunch of drug dealers on and connected to Skid Row, where miserable and desperate addicts go to die, and the member of the Los Angeles City Council who represents Skid Row was furious that a law enforcement operation made local residents…feel unsafe. By arresting their dealers.
And so on, and none of it seemed to be describing recognizable events from earth. If you think the news is normal, try going to the woods for a few days and living in silence. When you come back to whatever all of this is, you’ll find the experience jarring. I’m not sure most of “politics” means anything at all, right now, and I’d have to be convinced that James Talarico is a real human, but I guess I’ll acclimate.
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A great way to keep your sanity, especially when living in California, as the author does.
Thanks for posting! Beautiful shots that capture perfectly the feel of the place. I recognized it immediately, and remember the Lost Coast from the Olden Days, before the facebook crown ‘discovered’ it. Usal beach, etc.
Until there is a tsunami. Then a 10 ft, or a ten meter, series of waves will flood those canyons and cliffs.
I noticed that the “free” hiker in Communist California needed a back country government permit to walk on the government’s beach.
Hitchhike?
Doesn't this guy own a vehicle?
Who picks up hitchhikers in 2026?
This guy sounds like a loser and a serial killer.
There are times I am convinced that Pampas Grass will outlive humanity.
Or worse.
.
.
Excellent read. Thanks.
Hey Humble -
Nice to see you again.
Wondered where you went but that’s your business.
Take Care
“ an invitation to hitchhike on an old friend’s backcountry permit
Hitchhike?
Doesn’t this guy own a vehicle?
Who picks up hitchhikers in 2026?
This guy sounds like a loser and a serial killer.”
I’m interpreting what he said to mean using his friends permit to hike as his own permit, not literally hitchhike as his means to travel.
Perhaps you should at least read the first paragraph.
Blasphemy!
The California coastline is beautiful.
So is the Oregon coastline.
And, beautiful, I presume is the Washington coastline (I’ve only visited Seattle.
I guess it’s like smelling the roses, you’ve got to take the time view them.
“Until there is a tsunami...”
How about “until there’s an earthquake and Cali falls into the ocean.”
GMAFB. Dumbest post all weekend.
You’re wondering where he went? -
“This account has been banned or suspended.”
Humblegunner is like the fly at your picnic...
Unless of course you enjoy conversing with a psychotic ignoramus.
Poor attitude. San Andreus earthquake are not trivial, but they are not the real threat. And, as side-slip faults go, the “slide into the sea” is a false claim.
The next Mag 8.6 Earthquake and tsunami is now over up the California coast from Cape Mendancino to BC trips off every 248 years. The last was in Jan 1700, so we are now 78 years overdue. The next Mag 9,2 + earthquake in that same Cascadia subduction zone has a longer “average interval” so we are not yet “overdue”. Merely “due for an average 9.2 earthquake on that coast”.
My attitude is to take the hike.
Life is short and worth living. I don’t have time to worry about being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the next natural disaster.
BTW - when’s Yellowstone gonna blow? I live in the death zone...
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