Lost Coast

This past Memorial Day weekend Doug and I hiked the Lost Coast with Erin, Liz, Molly, Nathan and Quinn.  This time to unplug was much needed after juggling a busy few months at work with my first semester of grad school.

The lost coast is appropriately named because it is the most remote and undeveloped portion of the California coastline.  Many stretches of the coast are impassable at high tide, so hikers must carry a tide chart and make sure to not enter an impassable area at the wrong time.  Needless to say, flexibility is key when planning your hike along the coast.

We decided to do the stretch from Mattole Beach (north end) to Black Sands Beach in Shelter Cove, CA, making a nice 25 mile hike along the coast.  On Thursday night we picked up Molly and Nathan at the Sacramento and started our drive up to Shelter Cove.  We stayed the night in Willits to get a few hours of sleep and woke up at 4am to finish the drive and make our shuttle time of 7 AM. Taking a shuttle is the easiest way, in my opinion, to do this trip.  You park your car at Black Sands Beach, where you finish, and have a service shuttle you up to the trailhead, which is a windy one and a half hour drive.

Day One:
We started at Mattole Beach trailhead and hiked till Randall Creek, about 9 miles total.  This day we saw a variety of terrain, from sand to dirt trails to large rocks.  We were also learning about the high tide times and how to navigate the "impassable areas".  We found that many of these areas can be crossed during high tide as long as you are okay with getting a little wet. There were also many creeks and bluffs where we could retreat to during high tide.

About 3.7 miles in we reached Punta Gorda light house.  Just below this on the beach there was a group of sea lions lounging on the beach.

 We decided to stick the to the trail on the bluffs instead of hugging the beach.  Sand and rocks along the coast were much more strenuous to hike.

Around 5.7 miles in we hit Sea Lion Gulch and decided to split up from Erin and Liz.  We were entering an impassable zone during high tide are and Liz and Erin wanted to play it safe since they had Quinn.  Molly, Nathan, Doug and I moved on to see how far we could get before need to seek higher ground.  We ended up having to take a three hour break on the bluff in the picture above until high tide passed.

After our break, we hiked our final stretch to Randall Creek, where we agreed to meet Erin and Liz to set up camp. The campsite was beautiful, however it was the coldest and windiest night, making it hard to sleep.

We made dinner down by the creek.  Notice Molly falling out of her chair about while Liz remains unfazed chugging wine :)

Day Two:
We woke up tired from the lack of sleep the night before, but excited to hit the trail.  During day two we hiked from Randall Creek to Shipman Creek, another 9 miles.

Breakfast at Randall Creek the next morning.  We we thrilled to wake up to sunny, blue skies and less wind than the day before.

 Off we go!  Like day one, we decided to stay on the bluffs as much as possible.

Using landmarks to figure out where we are.

Yoga breaks :)

 We hiked past a house that had its own plane as a way to get to and from the Lost Coast.

 At this point the trail made its way down to the beach.  The views were spectacular!

 That's a whale! We saw fifteen whales over our three day hike.

 The beach outside of Shipman Creek.

We arrived at Shipman Creek around 3 PM and set up camp.  This was my favorite campsite.  Our tents looked right over the water.

 Liz made pizza from scratch!

Quinn was feeling sore after day two.  He had enough of walking on sand and crawled up on Doug's lap.

After washing camp dinner dishes with Molly. 

Day Three:
Our last day on the coast was bittersweet.  We were all excited to shower and not carry our packs anymore, but as I walked our last 7 miles I was already sad to leave the beauty and peaceful quiet of the beach. This last stretch was all along the coast.  Our legs were feeling the burn as we arrived to Black Sands Beach.

 This deer greeted us on the beach as we woke up on day three.

 Another day of beautiful clear blue skies.  We couldn't have asked for better weather.

About three miles in Quinn eventually had enough.  His paws were hurting from the sand so Liz put him in her pack.  Erin took some of Liz's load.  They both had a very heavy load to carry for the last four miles of our journey.

Here Molly and I are leaving the beach and making our way to the trail back to the parking lot.

 Quinn refused to leave Liz's pack.

We made it!

A week of goodbyes.

I've finally started my last week of teaching.  I see every one of my classes once a week, so that means that every class I have this week will be the last time I spend time with those students.  I knew it would be bittersweet saying goodbye to the students and that some students I would really miss, but I didn't expect to be hit with the wave of emotions that hit me yesterday.  All of a sudden I had the urge to cry and had to fight it back when I was saying goodbye to them at the end of class.  And I wasn't even saying goodbye to a class that I liked that much!  The students have been so sweet, saying the kindest things to me that I will remember forever.

Below are some pictures of a surprise farewell party that my co-teacher, Mrs. Kang, planned for me.  She even made a cake out of cheese bread and had the students bring it out to me!  I think the kids were pretty excited to have a party :)

Here are all the boys hovered over a plate of snacks.

This is Christina.  Whenever I see her in the hallways she always quizzes me by asking "Teacher, my name?"  Now, I'll never be able to forget her name!

From left to right: Villa, Smith Lee, and Cheetos.  Just from the English names they've picked, you can tell that they are major class clowns!  These guys are so fun to have in class. 

This is Castle.  She's really shy but tries so hard in class and is always so focused.  She's such a great student.

Fergusons in Busan.

The last stop of the trip was beautiful Busan.  Busan is the second largest city in South Korea, but has a very different vibe from Seoul.  It is spread out along the coast, so for some reason it doesn't seem so big, and it also has a very beachy vibe.  Doug and I had been once before, but it was during the winter.  So, we were excited to experience it during summer and see the busy beaches.

We arrived late on the first night after a very long bus ride from Boseong.  We checked into our hotels and dropped off our bags.  We were starving by that point, since it was past nine o'clock, so we walked down to the beach to check out the restaurants.  We found a great little Italian bistro on the waterfront that, luckily, was still taking in new customers even though it was approaching ten at that point.  The food was delicious, maybe one of the best places I have eaten in Busan.

The second day was when we did most of our sightseeing.  We went Busan Tower first and looked over the different districts and ports of Busan.  Once we got to the top, Doug and I searched for our "love lock" that we put up there when we were visiting in January.  We looked for awhile with the help of Doug's parents, but couldn't find it.  In hindsight maybe we should have made our lock really unique looking to stand out.

After the tower, we shopped, ate lunch, and then stopped at Jalgachi Fish Market.  You can actually see the market in the picture of the city, above.  It is the longer building with the funny curved roof.  It is towards the right side of the picture and is along the water.  The market is always a cool thing to see.  They've got every type of seafood that you could imagine.  

The outdoor market.

The indoor market.

The last day we went down to the beach by our hotel to dip our feet in the water before we had to get on our train back to Cheonan.  When you go the the beach in Korea, you can rent an umbrella space rather than bringing your own.  So all the spaces are uniformly distributed along the beach with red umbrellas.

When we were walking back to the hotel to get our bags and go to the train station, we ran into a local with two beautiful Jindo dogs.  The owner spoke impeccable English, so it was so fun talking to her about her dogs.  Jindos are often kept her as a guard dog, chained up outside for their entire life - never let off their chain.  Or they are raised for dog meat occasionally.  Rarely do we see them as actually pets.  This girl's Jindos were so incredibly sweet.  The one that is not pictured would just plow her head right into you and try to snuggle on your lap when you crouched down to pet her.  It was so endearing! Now, Doug is totally sold on getting a Jindo someday.