Leon Turnbull Photography

It has been a long time coming. I have wanted to go to this waterfall on the Lost Coast for many years. This weekend, the conditions seemed perfect. All the stars were aligned: Lots of recent rain, a break in the weather (for a couple days), a rare minus tide at sunset (required to get to the falls).

I took the day off work, and made the very long drive out to California’s fabled Lost Coast. It is possible to drive to the Usal campground. The road is very rough, very steep, very narrow, and very muddy. It is not something I really had any desire to drive. Thus, I decided to park my car and walk the 6 miles into the campground. That is my excuse. The truth is that I could have easily driven in to the camp. There were plenty of others that drove in (actually, a lot more than I expected to see at Usal). However, I did not want to drive. I “wanted” to hike in. I “needed” to do a backpack trip. I could have chosen a different location perhaps, but I really wanted to go to this particular waterfall, and as I mentioned, the conditions were perfect for it. So … was I laughed at by the other drivers that passed me on the road? Perhaps, but I did not care. I definitely did not regret it.

The hike is 6 miles, and is not too difficult, except for the 1000 ft. elevation gain, and then a 1000 ft. descent down to the campground. There are not very many views along the road, until you near the end. Then the magnificent ocean finally comes into sight. I could actually see the waterfall way down at the far end of the coast, such a long way away. I was not in a rush on this hike, and took plenty of video and photos.

It was the Monday of the long weekend. I was not surprised there would be people at Usal camping on the weekend. And there were. I also expected that they would be leaving on Monday, and I would (hopefully) have the camp all to myself on Monday night. This also was the case. When I arrived, there was still one vehicle in the camp, but they left before too long, and then I was all by myself. The strange thing, though, was that on my hike back out on Tuesday I saw quite a few drivers coming into Usal. I found it extremely odd that so many people would be coming into this very remote location in the middle of a week day in the middle of winter.

Anyway, I came to the bridge over Usal Creek. This creek was unbelievably huge. It would be uncrossable without a bridge. Fortunately there was a bridge. I crossed and looked for a campsite. There are many campsites here. None of them were great campsites, except for the ones closest to the beach, but there was a strong cold wind and those ones were not sheltered at all. I chose a sheltered spot away from the beach, setup my tent, and made my dinner.

After dinner, I hiked down the beach to the waterfall for sunset. It is a long hike. The beach is mostly very rocky, which is hard on the feet and quite slow going. I was taking a lot of photos and video, so that obviously increased the time but coming back afterwards, I was hiking as fast as possible, and it took a full hour or longer to get back to camp. Finally, I arrived at the falls. It was absolutely beautiful! It drops about 80 ft. right into the ocean. I love it (not!) when everyone says there are only two waterfalls in California that drop right into the ocean (can you guess which ones they say?). In reality, there are many more waterfalls than those two that fall into the ocean and this is one of them. With the minus tide, I could walk right up to it and photograph it from in front, in order get the stream in the foreground. I did not have to wait too long for sunset, but I oddly had cell service here so I made sure to send some photos to my jealous wife while I waited.

After taking photos at sunset, I booted it back to camp. As you can imagine, if it takes a full hour to hike along the beach, I arrived back at camp well after dark. I had my headlamp of course. The big problem was trying not to twist my ankle on the very rocky beach in the dark. I made it back without incident, jumped into my tent and warm sleeping bag, and went to bed.

I was warm in my sleeping bag all night, but in the morning there was a lot of condensation on my tent and on the outside of my sleeping bag. Everything was soaking wet. (not on the inside of my bag, though, thankfully!). It was cold outside, but I walked down to the ocean one last time while I tried to let things dry out (which did not happen because there was no sun out yet).

So I did something slightly stupid while down at the ocean, taking photos. The tide was coming in. I was taking photos along Usal Creek where it flows into the ocean. A wave came up, all the way to the creek. I saw it coming and got out of there in time. Only problem is that I forgot to pick up my glove. The wave pushed the glove into the creek, that very big creek, and it started to flow down the creek towards the ocean. Oh my gosh! I dropped my gear in a safe spot, and splashed through the ocean water, along the creek bed, where I then had to plant my foot right into the creek in order to reach in and grab the glove. My foot was now soaking wet and it would be cold for the rest of the morning (even after putting on a dry sock), and of course I could not wear the glove (which is bad because it was a cold morning). Thankfully, however, I did not lose anything. I survived the ocean yet again.

After this excursion to the beach, I ate my breakfast and packed up my very wet gear. Now I am sure you are thinking that since most everyone drives to Usal campground, the campground must be squeaky clean because everyone has a vehicle and can easily pack out their trash. Yeah, nope. There is a lot of trash at the campground, annoyingly and sadly. I took out most of the trash I found at the two campsites that I used. I say two because the one I chose for my tent did not have a picnic table, so I used the neighboring site for eating my food. Those two sites I left pretty much immaculate when I left. (you can thank me later). My pack was much heavier on the hike back out (but that also had something to do with my wet tent gear).

I decided to take a slightly different route, rather than hiking along the road. There is a trail called Peter Douglas Coastal Trail, which is a new extension of the official Lost Coast trail, and it begins at the Usal campground. It is a bit longer, but I figured I had the time so why not try it. I am so glad I did this! The trail goes through an absolutely amazing old growth Redwood forest. These trees were utterly spectacular and unique; this is one of the best Redwood hikes I have ever done in my life. The hike ended with some amazing ocean views, and along the way I saw an elk as well. If I had driven up to the Usal campground instead of hike, I would have seen none of this. If I did not know already, now I KNEW I made the right decision to hike into the camp. It was a beautiful morning, and an awesome couple days on California’s Lost Coast.