Epic Hikes of the World ( PDFDrive )

© MH Anderson Photography | Shutterstock
the Brandon Gap in autumn
Back on the main trail we soon found ourselves descending to the same beach
we had seen from above, a vast expanse of black sand on the threshold of the old
Wheeler logging camp, where operations were abandoned in 1959. After so much
time within earshot of the surf, yet hundreds of feet above it, it was pure
exhilaration to plunge into the waves, despite the frigid water temperature. We
broke for lunch, then climbed over a 4-mile (6.5km) ridge to our next campsite.
At Bear Harbor, the landscape abruptly emerged from the rugged cliffs and
densely forested hills of the southern Lost Coast into the blissfully open coastal
bluffs of Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. Our camp sat in a grassy clearing beside
a creek, a few paces inland from a wild, pebbly beach. Nearby, open meadows
and a venerable eucalyptus grove hinted at the Lost Coast’s more settled history;
in the 19th century, an influx of settlers established orchards, farms and ranches
here, and a railroad was built to extract tan oak bark from the inland forests.
“When we awoke, the grasses beside our tent bore the imprints of the
elks’ massive bodies”