Bull Frog Toes - Adventures and Stories: Part 13 - The Lost Coast Trail - Day 2

START HERE - THE LOST COAST PART 1

Story continued from Part 12 - The Danse Macabre
So after the morning's drama - we all survived - Whitey did not even have to change his shorts - we climbed up to the trail above the beach and continued down the coast in the glorious sunshine. It was going to be a warm day. As mentioned before, we are now in the concave curve of the coast that was not cooled by a breeze off the ocean. The morning was fine - still cool - but later we would have to enjoy the smell of baked kelp whips and the hot air blasting off the sand up under our hats. The scenery was of course fantastic. As we came onto Spanish Flat, a nice firm flat trail below Spanish Ridge, we found ourselves surrounded by wonderful yellow flowers, the California Poppy, that welcome the new day and us with their splendor. It was like Dorothy and the clan of misfits heading to Oz on a yellow brick road. I won't need a heart or courage, but maybe I can ask the Wizard for some mole skin when we get there, I feel a hot spot on my heal.

As we headed down to a creek bed to take a break and get some shelter from the sun, we saw more signs of the fire that had ravaged the flat and hillside earlier in the year. The flat was clearly charred from the fire, but the Poppies appear to thrive in the reconfigured landscape - like pine cones that only release their seeds when under extreme heat from fire. To me, it always seems that California is under constant assault from the elements...and actors turned politician.

Spanish Flat fire - July 2011 - (I read the couple that started this were charged $143,000)

Fire burned up the hillside too

Today was going to be a hard push - a total of 14 miles for the day. We are going to try for Bear Hollow campsite way up off of Miller flat. This camp was four miles and a few thousand vertical feet into the mountains from the beach. In hindsight this was too much - but what could we do? We originally planned to camp on Spanish Flat but stopped early at Randall Creek - so the miles get added to the next day. Of course we would pay for it - me more than the others. I think I would have asked the Wizard for more than mole skin had I known.
After our break we entered a section I call the bone collector or EZ Bake Oven - it was hot, dry, and was turning the driftwood into bleached bone replicas from some large sea monster; one that would clearly cause unspeakable horror to beach goers if it existed. But after this section, we knew we were closer to Miller flat and our eastward turn into the mountains. We would climb on the much revered Rattlesnake Ridge trail - a sawtooth switchback of a mother that would do some damage.


There are bears coming down out of this creek area.

Miller flat is a little over 7 miles from the end of the Lost Coast trail at Shelter Cove. Lots of folks will hike out from Shelter Cove to camp overnight here and then return the next day. Sounds like a great time. Here the trail leaves the beach and heads up to the ridge to slice off the large flat that is actually much bigger than I thought it would be.