Trinidad and Shelter Cove — Day 3

We had dinner one evening and breakfast the following morning at this place.

Heading South on 101 having just left Crescent City. Beautiful redwoods dominated the drive and the angle of the sun penetrating in was marvelous.

We started the day out in Crescent City, waking up at 7:30am. We decided we liked yesterday’s bakery and wanted to have breakfast there. After a good, big breakfast, we hit the road in search of Trinidad Head lighthouse. After a quick hour long drive, we pulled into the small and most charming Trinidad 60 miles south. There are two lighthouses in Trinidad: a memorial lighthouse, located in the center of the town, and another of Trinidad Head, a huge rock (300 feet high) facing the ocean. The memorial lighthouse was immediately visible and pretty nice. There were steps below it leading down to the ocean. We took the steps down and enjoyed watching seals on nearby rocks and just appreciating the scene.

After a short while it was time to trek up the big Trinidad Head rock to see the original lighthouse. After following an uphill path for about 30 minutes, we reached a point from which the lighthouse was visible. The lighthouse has been off limits for years by the CA coast guard. Not sure why. I had to climb a very unstable platform (I highly discourage doing this) and had Tobia hold my feet down as I tried to get more quality shots than just the standard ones you can get from the platform.

Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse. Immediately visible as we drove into Trinidad.

View of Trinidad Bay.

Trinidad Bay from ocean level. Some seals on the rock and 1 swimming.

I had to stand on a weird, unstable platform to get as good a shot of this as possible. Tobia held my legs down I was shaking so badly. Worth the photo.

It was pretty hot and we were a bit winded following the tough climb to Trinidad Head rock.

After our descent from the rock, it was time to head to Shelter Cove. The drive to Garberville (the only town with a road to Shelter Cove) was very quick and again full of redwoods. We ate at a fantastic tree huggery restaurant called Mateel’s. I had a baked tofu sandwich, and Tobia had a chicken quesadilla. We both remarked how fresh, delicious and wholesome the food was. Tobia’s dish came with some fabulous organic flax seed chips that we couldn’t stop pigging out on. I know this all sounds crazy, we couldn’t even grasp how good the food was.

This was where I had the incredibly good Tofu Sandwich in Garberville. Tobia’s dish came with really good organic flax seed chips.

Following this delicious adventure in Garberville, we finally headed off to Shelter Cove. The path to Shelter Cove consists of a long, twisty, climbing and descending road (I had to slip into 1st and 2nd gears so many times just to have enough power to get through), and it was very difficult to pass. Not that I drove fast enough to pass anyone, but many 4×4s simply smoked me along the drive.

We finally descended into Shelter Cove around 3pm to a gorgeous partial view of the airstrip and the ocean. We checked into the hotel where the inn lady told us there wasn’t much to do in town. Kinda surprising, I’ve never had such poor tourist recommendations. Still, we decided to take a walk around Shelter Cove, as I had mapped out distances of about 1.5 – 2 miles across the little cove. We ventured through the lower pacific drive street, where we were able to descend to the headlands and see crashing waves just a few feet away. Kings Range and the Lost Coast were visible both in the North and South directions in Shelter Cove, and they were simply magnificent. It was also very warm in the Cove, the ocean hardly cooling down this area. Right at the beginning of our walk, we saw a small plane take off from the Cove too, which was quite a cool viewing experience.

Shelter Cove- to the North is King’s Range. Right in front of us (no more than 100 feet) was this beautiful view from our room balcony.	Looking south from our balcony.	More of King’s Range to the north.
Rugged rocks, strong waves, I loved the scenery.	Planes at rest in Shelter Cove airstrip. About 10 minutes after this picture on of them left the Cove.	View of King’s Range to the south. It’s really quite an abnormality that Shelter Cove formed right in the middle of King’s Range as it’s terrain is so different.

We continued our walk, noticing dozens of empty land lots for sale. The view is spectacular at Shelter Cove, and I can see that despite its remoteness, people would be lured to this place. I got the sense that Mendocino (though more beautiful) seems like a pampered, too close to real life type place as compared to Shelter Cove. Phones do not work here, the internet exists with very weak on and off signals at a few locations, and they look to the small town of Garberville as “the city”.

Cape Mendocino Lighthouse relocated to Shelter Cove. It has been remodeled and too out of its element in my opinion. It doesn’t have the rugged look it used to have.

(Picture from lighthousefriends.com) This is what the lighthouse looked like back at Cape Mendocino at the Western most point in California.

Around midway through our walk, we saw the old Cape Mendocino lighthouse, migrated here from the Cape itself and restored. It now resides on the south side of the Cove in Mal Coombs Park, an ordinary lighthouse, clearly not in its true home and definitely out of place. Following the lighthouse we descended to a black sand beach, at the Southern corner of which we saw the day’s fishing boats returning full of fish, only to be lugged up a 500 foot or so semi-paved road by a badass tractor up to the Cove. On our way back from the black sands, I noticed a shoe in the water. Figuring it for hopelessly gone, we walked away. As we went up the steps back to the lighthouse, the shoe appeared close enough, and after a few acrobatic skips between rocks to avoid waves, I was able to snag the shoe out of the water and onto land. I was quite pleased with myself, though I figure it was ultimately for nothing.

This is the tractor that was pulling the day’s shipping boats up to the cove from the water.

Walking on upper pacific drive, looking down at the airstrip.

I proudly display the shoe I rescued out of Lost Coast waters.

On our trip back, we walked on upper pacific drive street. We got good looks at the airstrip and also at most of the golf course holes (9 hole golf course in Shelter Cove). We returned to the inn, had some pizza for dinner and I stepped out to our most incredible balcony to look out at the ocean 100 feet away, and capture the day’s events.

Me sitting down to capture the day’s events while appreciating the gorgeous view from our room prior to sunset.

View from our room’s balcony around sunset.

Another beautiful view.

Just after sundown.