Ferndale, Cape Mendocino and Crescent City — Day 2

Nice Inn. Also restaurant where we ate.

We woke up around 7:30am in Santa Rosa. After a breakfast consisting of food we brought from home and goods available at the inn, we hit the road shortly after 8. We drove for hours through acres and acres of Redwoods up Highway 101 North. Following nearly 3.5 hours of scenic drive through Ukiah, Willits, Leggett, Garberville, and other smaller towns, we arrived at Ferndale around noon time. Ferndale was a charming little town, the site where a large part of the movie “The Majestic” was filmed. It was a Victorian town, nice enough to visit once.

Following a fairly good lunch, Tobia and I set to make our trip out to Cape Mendocino, the Western most point in California. After taking 45 minutes to drive the 17 or so mile Mattole Road drive- full of curves, horrible rough road, and tight climbs and descents- we finally saw a weird, really shallow ocean, with black sand. There was no way to turn off to Sugar Loaf Island, also the location of the former Cape Mendocino Lighthouse (now in Shelter Cove), as well as the Western most point in the state. Instead, we drove up to Mattole bridge, just past the private property, and took a barely visible (and scary) path down to the black sand beach. Amidst horrible conditions of roughly 25 mph winds in our faces, and sand grains chopping us up, we started trekking towards this Western most point and Sugar Loaf Island. Roughly half a mile away, it became nearly impossible to continue, with Tobia out of breath, unable to lift her weight out of the wet sands, and thinking she was about to have a heart attack. I couldn’t leave her behind, so we took some pictures in the fog, and turned around. To be fair, though, I was struggling horrendously myself, figuring I’d make a quick run out there while keeping an eye on Tobia and then come back after setting foot on the Western most point. Tobia was a great sport, supporting my craziness and pushing herself probably harder than I should have let her.

Our first view of the Lost Coast on drive.	First glimpse of Sugar Loaf Rock.	The sky, the sand and the water colors jumped out immediately as weird to me. The water depth was unnaturally shallow.	It was a tough walk on the Black Sands Beach. There were lots of bones of dead animals and other washed up things that didn’t stand a chance.
This was as close as I was able to get to the rock and the Western most point. I ran to get to this point, leaving Tobia behind, but within distance to keep an eye on her. The wind was blowing against me really hard and the sand too soft to make really good strides through.	Winds so strong I couldn’t keep the hood portion of my sweat shirt down. On top of that the sand was hitting me from behind really hard. It was unbearably difficult walk given these conditions.	Again, strange colors and rocks jutting out randomly.	I’m not sure I want to know how this happened.

I have to say that though extremely beautiful, it was the most isolated and desolate place I have ever seen in my life. Colors were just unnatural in terms of sand, water, and sky. It felt like the kind of place where you can die and no one would ever know. In fact, we saw 3 dead birds and a big fish skeleton on our route.

Ultimately, I was pretty disappointed when we got back to the car, not having exactly set foot where I wanted, but got close enough. I had done plenty of research, and road maps (as well as aerial ones) indicated that there was a road that splits away from the main one and that would lead us to the old location of Cape Mendocino Lighthouse. It would also enable us to stand at a high elevation and get some good photos of Sugar Loaf Island. Despite lingering on the road, coming to a complete stop on both directions, we could not find this mystery road, as everything had become private property. There was not even a hint of road. I ultimately sent CA parks an email asking WTF happened.

With a sense of total fatigue and pain in our bodies following the tough trek, we hopped in our car and headed to Crescent City. The drive up to Crescent City was gorgeous on 101 North. There were so many and so beautifully green redwood trees along our path. We passed Eureka (not impressive at all actually), Arcata, Trinidad and Klamath, just to name some of the bigger or more noticeable locations. We reached Crescent City around 5:30pm after a 2 hour drive.
We settled into the hotel and went to grab some dinner. Following dinner we ventured around the town, eventually walking to the lighthouse we intended to see- Battery Point Lighthouse. This lighthouse can only be reached at low tide, when the water level is low enough to cross an otherwise water covered path. As it wasn’t low tide, we went for a walk along a pier to get some nice photos of the lighthouse. The lighthouse is perched on a big rock, looking remote and beautiful high up there. On our way back from the pier, we realized the tide was low and were able to cross the pathway and made it up to the lighthouse. Beautiful place.

View of Crescent City Bay.	Battery Point Lighthouse can only be reached at low tide. The path to it is not visible yet.	Battery Point Lighthouse from the stone boardwalk we were on.
We were able to cross the path to the island and get a close up of Battery Point.	A self portrait just past the rock where Battery Point is perched.	This is what the path looked like (at low tide) to cross to Battery Point.

Following Battery Point Lighthouse, I had recalled nearby another location I wanted to see: Saint George Reef Lighthouse. This weird lighthouse was built on top of a concrete cylinder structure, on top of a small island, 8 miles west of Saint George Point, just a few miles north of Crescent City. Visibility was fairly poor, but we were able to see the lighthouse’s outline through the haze. Unfortunately the only way to reach it is by helicopter and those weren’t available, not to mention not a fun way to reach a lighthouse. We took some faint pictures of the remote lighthouse and finally headed back to the inn, around 8:30pm, to rest after an extremely long day.

Point St. George Lighthouse can be seen faintly here. I wish the visibility was better.

On the way back from Point St. George, great scenery and Battery Point Lighthouse.

A beautiful mural in downtown Crescent City depicting Point St. George Lighthouse. The lighthouse is built on top of a cylindrical concrete structure. Winds and waves get really strong (and high) out there.