Megafauna, Naked Women, and Bloodthirsty Vegetation: An FKT on the Lost Coast Trail

About one year ago, on March 27th, 2018, I set out to break Dylan Bowman’s fastest known time (FKT) on the Lost Coast Trail. Here’s the story.

Looking north from Usal Beach, the southern terminus of the Lost Coast Trail.

Two naked women came sprinting across the sand towards me. They were clad in nothing but American flag hats, dollar store sunglasses, mardi gras beads, and one, a giant fur coat flowing in the wind. Dana handed me a plastic pineapple filled with hydration mix. I sipped out of the frilly green bendy straw and stripped the pack off my sweaty back. Jordan tossed me a fresh handheld bottle as I looked up at a weathered plywood sign locals had posted where beach meets road: “DANGER LIVES LOST HERE.” Leaving the painted skull and crossbones behind meant that I had safely made it through the first 25 miles of this journey. Jordan, Dana, and I chatted briefly about their lack of clothes and how sore I was from running on sand for the rough equivalent of a marathon. Then as quickly as they appeared, the girls left me to run away into the ocean. I exited the beach and began a 2,000-foot road climb from sea to summit. I had to move quick if I wanted to best ultrarunner Dylan Bowman’s fastest known time on northern California’s Lost Coast Trail.

The amount of clothing on that outstretched arm is precisely how much clothing the rest of that body had on.

Four and a half hours earlier, I had stood at Mattole Beach on the periphery of a vast coastal wilderness. Jordan snapped a photo of me and I gave her a nervous high-five. Dana had refused to wake up at 4:30am and slept soundly in the tent back at the campground. A shiver coursed through my body as I turned my back on Jordan and started running into the pre-dawn darkness through the loose, windswept sand. Miles ticked off as I slipped silently past sleeping seals, sea lions, and unsuspecting slumbering campers. To my left, sea-spray-coated cliffs vaulted out of the sand. Above them, the King Range rose thousands of feet into the star-studded night sky. To my right, the Pacific Ocean crashed onto the rocky shore, jostling pebbles, a musical pattering. I ran on a narrow strip of earth between sea and summit. 

The so-called “trail” vacillated between runnable singletrack, sand of every degree of saturation, and rock-strewn beach ranging from refrigerator-sized boulders to coconut-sized stones. My headlamp and I bore south through the darkness, the dynamic landscape exposing itself in faint, tantalizing shadows and silhouettes outside of my light’s glow. The moon lay low on the horizon, pale light softening the jagged contours of this infamous stretch of coastline. 

After an hour of running, I clicked off my headlamp to watch the pinkening sky bring the severity of the mountains before me into focus. Now that I could see further than a few hundred feet, I gazed down the peak-lined coast. I had traveled perhaps seven miles and was about to enter the first of two four-mile impassible zones, where the high tide consumes the Lost Coast Trail twice a day. I had 18 more miles of beach and rock running, followed by 32 miles (and over 10,000 feet of climbing) in the mountains. After filling my water bottle in a stream and slurping down a gel, I settled in for 50 more unforgiving miles on Northern California’s fabled Lost Coast. As footstep after footstep sank into damp sand, I mused over how I had come to find myself in this situation.

Sunrise along a lonely stretch of the northern Lost Coast Trail.

For nearly seven months I was living an hour and a half south of Usal Beach, the southern end of the Lost Coast, in the small coastal town of Fort Bragg. From Usal, another four and a half hours of nausea-inducing driving would take a determined traveler to Mattole Beach, the northern terminus of the Lost Coast Trail. The 57-miles in between these two beaches are lonely and weather-beaten. A century ago, this coast proved to be too gnarled for the ambitious builders of California’s famous coastal highway, who had to circumvent the area. These miles were “lost,” and with the absence of a road, the Lost Coast was born. 

Throughout the winter, I was working for the state as a seasonal fisheries technician, probing coastal streams and rivers to collect data on the endangered salmon returning to spawn. Twice, my coworkers and I had to abandon plans to backpack the northern part of the Lost Coast. The dates we had permits for both wound up falling on the two stormiest weekends of the stormiest time of year, on a notoriously stormy coastline. With backpacks ready, we regrettably acknowledged it was not worth hiking for miles on beach and wet rocks in hypothermia-inducing cold and rain. But the Lost Coast remained just north, a wild adventure nagging in the back of my mind. 

On the prowl for spawning salmonids and their redds. South Fork Garcia River, Mendocino County.

Out of the blue in early April, my supervisor texted me a video of Dylan Bowman running the complete Lost Coast Trail (both the southern and northern sections), setting a new fastest known time (FKT) on the route. I stared at my phone and wondered if I might be able to best Dylan’s time of 11 hours and 12 minutes. Waves of self-doubt and excuses came over me. Any hard effort would be physically draining and mentally brutal, not to mention logistically baffling. The reasons why I was destined to fail began to pile up. I quickly shook these insecurities before they could settle, and instead stoked a fire inside myself. 

I was deep in a long training block for the Lake Sonoma 50, and knew I could recover in time to be fit enough tackle the Lost Coast. I looked at my phone again and began typing. “Is this a challenge? Because I am SO down.” Luckily, you don’t need permits for a day “hike.” And that is how I ended up a month and a half later, shivering in the dark at the Mattole Beach trailhead at 4:30 in the morning with who until recently, was a complete stranger.

Blurry photo from a blurry morning. Mattole Beach.

The morning chill did not last long as I ran those first 25 miles of beach. By the time I reached my notably nude crew, the sun had obliterated the morning fog and the mercury had begun to inch upwards. With the sun beaming down on me, I began a hot, exposed road climb away from the beach. Jordan and Dana were dousing themselves in ice cold north coast waters while I was dousing myself in my own sweat. 

The next time I saw Jordan and Dana, they had their clothes on, and I had taken mine off. The sun had blasted me on the 2,000-foot road climb out of Shelter Cove. I quickly shed my shirt, as I was not used to much more than the cool, maritime climate I had enjoyed in Fort Bragg. Here, though, the temperature rises in sync with the topography. The route leaves the beach and climbs over 10,000 vertical feet in 32 rugged King Range miles. 

Jordan and Dana, now sporting butterfly wings and other dollar store accessories, helped me swap out sandy shoes and socks for fresh pairs as I prepared to enter the labyrinthine trail that stretched south to Usal. This final pitstop was a chance to ready myself for a different kind of physical battle than simply running over 50 miles. And also, a chance to once again drink water from a plastic pineapple. 

A scouting run I had done a few weeks earlier revealed that much of the next marathon would be heinously overgrown with stinging nettle, thistle, poison oak, and blackberries, commingled into thickets of doom intent on ripping anyone who dared pass to shreds. In other words, 90% of the pain-inducing plants that I know, growing happily together, were preparing to wreak havoc on my body and mind. I devised what I thought was a fool-proof plan: shave my legs in advance and then coat my legs in layers of KT tape for protection. I felt like I was betting my life on those hellaciously adhesive strips of medical tape. Absolutely nothing could go wrong. After a few moments of careful adhesion, my now electric-blue legs and I were ready to battle onward. My legs carried me to a strip of mountain singletrack with a few whoops from my crew and some of Jordan’s mom’s amazing secret-recipe cookies in hand.

A few miles later, hands on my knees, sweat dripping into my eyes, I grunted up yet another steep climb. The exuberance that Dana and Jordan had brought during my only two makeshift aid stations had diminished. Eyes stinging and lungs burning, I let my thoughts settle on the day so far. Almost immediately, I circled back to the fact that my crew had been nude a few hours before and insisted on giving me water only through a now beloved plastic pineapple. Not to mention, they had driven over a dozen hours to help me spend a day throwing myself against a chunk of coastline most do in a 10-day backpacking trip, all in the hopes of breaking a record. The miles stacked up and I wondered, probably out loud in a bit of delusion: how the hell did I scrape together a crew for a brilliantly stupid adventure like this?

My crew came to be in the way all good things come to be: over a few cold PBRs. At 8:00 a.m. Jordan and I met while imbibing at an aid station for a local 50k. Eight hours later we had lost our voices cheering, rang cow bells until we were left with bloody knuckles, and had made plans for Jordan to crew me on a future Lost Coast Trail FKT attempt. 

Dana and I met in less casual circumstances. Jordan had simply brought Dana along. It remains unclear what Jordan told Dana to convince her to help, but I think Dana thought she was going hiking. They drove four hours from the Sonoma Valley to meet me at the southern trailhead, Usal. Meanwhile, myself and my van were covered in mud after I pinned my former-construction-van-turned-home on a muddy dirt road 1,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean leading to Usal. I quickly ruled out making it to the trailhead that evening as a 4x4 truck retreated and I was told a half dozen cars were stranded up ahead. It took another hour of going back and forth up the highway to look for the girls before we finally united. I hopped out of my idling van covered in mud and met Dana on the side of a wet, windy highway. She had no idea what she was getting herself into.

We hastily camped somewhere along Highway One, perched a few hundred feet above an angry Pacific. Barred from the southern trailhead with the unexpected rain, we scrapped our plans of leaving my van there. Instead, I abandoned my windowless white home (with everything I own neatly packed inside) on the highway in a gravel turnout. We began the four and a half hour drive north and I prayed it would still be there two days later. 

A sudden realization that I was slipping into a dehydrated fantasy brought me crashing back from my reminiscing. I grabbed at my running vest and groped for what I realized was a torturously empty water bottle. There was nothing I could do about my dehydration until I reached the next creek crossing. Forty miles in, 17 to go, on this sinuous redwood coast. I crested the top of the ridge and gleefully let my legs spin as I descended a rooty trail winding through a grove of towering conifers. Over my right shoulder, ripples of breaking waves wove the rocky coves into a braid of cliff studded coastline extending to the north. I had come a long way. Each footstep downhill jarred my body and my memory, former explorations in the area coming flooding back to me. 

The creek bustling through the valley was glorious salvation. I promptly plopped down in it and splashed water all over myself. I needed to cool down. The KT Tape on my legs was peeling off, partly from creekwater, but mostly from battling through miles of overgrown thickets. Despite my trying to push harder, vegetation of all kinds grabbed at me and slowed me down, a frustrating environmental condition to cope with after already putting 50 miles behind me. It seemed like everything was going against me. 

Some aggressive vegetation and I looking north to mouth of Jackass Creek.

I was tired, alone, bloody, and so damn itchy. And the trail just kept getting worse. With each passing mile the stinging nettle grew higher and the brush grew so dense that I could not see the trail beneath me. My naked arms and legs were abuzz from constant exposure to the nettle. Sopping wet with creek water, I stood up and shook off the water and hesitations, resolving to push myself further and harder the last few miles. I had shirked off hesitations as I lit this fire months ago, and I refused to let that inferno be doused.

Running out of the woods, I navigated a steep, grassy hillside that plummeted into the ocean hundreds of feet below. The hip high grass was punctuated with tunnels of bushes and trees. I ducked, dodged, and fell to the ground for the fifth time in minutes. Waves lapped seemingly lazily at the rocks hundreds of feet below, and my mind raced with anxiety. So much had gone into this attempt, and here I was falling on the ground and crawling on my knees. I felt like I had stumbled into a pre-race stress dream: the gun goes off and people fly by you, but your legs are unable to take a single step forward until panic wakes you up. Every step I put more effort into than the last, but it hardly mattered. The trail was in such rough shape that I had no control over my pace, which had slowed to a literal crawl as I neared mile 57.

I was beaten, I was exhausted, and I was ready to be done. Even so, there I was moving my blistered feet and shredded legs. Still moving, and still loving every goddamn hard step. I remembered that text from my supervisor. He didn’t have a clue I was even out here. Hardly anyone did. My mind floated to all of the things I had seen that day. Sifting through the memories mid-run was like finding treasures in the black sand beaches I had just left footprints in. I knew I had had these experiences, but so many magical things had happened in a single day that I needed a sieve to remember to catch them all. I had run through the middle of a herd of 30 elk (in hindsight, not recommended), listened to elephant seals barking in the dark, and traveled a route in one day that most take over a week to backpack. As the trail conditions eroded, my love for this place grew. Despite the adversity, I was enraptured by the most beautiful and diverse route I had ever traversed. 

Rolling into the Usal trailhead exhausted and thrilled, I glanced at my watch. I had managed to travel the 57-mile Lost Coast Trail in a new fastest known time of 10 hours and 10 minutes, over an hour under the old record. A smile spread across my face as I looked around for my glorious crew. Not seeing anyone, I shrugged and sat down in the inviting dirt. Maybe they couldn’t get over the muddy road to Usal? I wondered out loud whether or not I should be worried. After 15 minutes I stood up and started wandering, because I needed water, and I needed it right now. My dry mouth attempted something akin to drool as I thought of that succulent plastic pineapple and the cold water inside. I stagger-stepped down 50 yards of dirt road before looking up to see Jordan sitting in a folding chair clearly waiting for me. 

While Jordan may have waited for me at the wrong trailhead, she did set up a spectacular arrangement of all my favorite things: plush folding chair I found at a Goodwill, ice-cold PBR, Ensure (not just for geriatrics), and my well-worn pair of Crocs. Jordan asked me about the day, and I struggled to put the hard, 10-hour push into words. 

Traveling the Lost Coast Trail in a day gave me a brief yet powerful glimpse at a truly remote and wild land tucked within the most populated state in the nation. Some days stay with us more than others, and this day definitely satisfied the wintertime nagging in my mind, while nestling into a permanent and prominent place in my memory. Happily trying to articulate these feelings to Jordan, I slipped my feet into my comfy Crocs. Except, one of my Crocs was definitely a foam flip flop. We both laughed in the sunny, humid redwood forest. Crewing is not easy, and Jordan and Dana had clearly had a long day too. 

For an FKT attempt like this, there was no fanfare or hoopla. Instead, there was just a text message from a supervisor, plans made with strangers over morning beers, and three people that did not know what they were getting themselves into. But as Jordan and Dana presented me with a plastic dollar store “certificate of achievement” after dinner, I realized how lucky I was to be a part of the ultrarunning community. With each flamingo sticker and bit of glitter on that hand-written certificate, a million reasons to be grateful for these two women and this place flooded my emotions

A desire to run and experience a place in a way few ever have before had brought me to the Lost Coast. When I drove home in my thankfully-not-stolen van the next morning, I realized what the ultrarunning community can do when it comes together to support one another. Armed with nothing but a plastic pineapple, and perhaps clad in nothing, strangers can help new friends chase dreams.

Shoutout to Jordan and Dana for being kickass crew mates. Thanks to the Skip Brand, the Healdsburg Running Company, and HRC peeps for pushing me to do this and supporting me. Thanks Dylan Bowman for the route GPX track and beta. And thank you so much to Laura Stasi, Ryan Ghelfi, and my Aunt Ann for helping me edit this piece. Only took a year to do something with this!

A year later and Jordan is still an absolute savage at crewing people. Lake Sonoma 50 Mile, 2019.