Lost.....

Time after time I hear stories of what the California coast was like before all the cities, traffic and overpopulated suburbs took it over.

After spending some time on the Lost Coast you'll realize that the wild wild west of the Golden State is still here to explore. After driving through several small towns, a seemingly endless windy road through the coastal mountain range, and a wrong turn that led us into a Ranch that I could've sworn belonged to John Wayne's twin brother, we arrived at the coast.

The fog bank creeps down the mountainside, hangs over the Cape and extends out to sea, leaving the entire beach southward to soak up the sunshine. The water is a deep turquoise blue that follows an empty sandy beach as far as you can see. After sunset I found myself sitting on the beach under an unusually bright and beautiful starlit sky; a perfect backdrop to the hillside which calmly rolls to the sea.

If you've never been out here before you owe it to yourself to take a peek at what this amazing stretch of coastline has to offer.

We ventured South from Arcata in search of a couple waves with directions that were vague at best. "You're going to come to a place where you'll think you will be there..... but it's not," said one of our friends up in Oregon. "It'll look like it's not windy, but it is...," and "there's a house on a ranch at the bottom of the hill, you talk to a guy and if you're lucky you'll get in," what is this? A search for the lost city of El Dorado?

We found ourselves out in the middle of nowhere in some of the most beautiful country i've ever seen. The wind was good, but unfortunately the waves were nowhere to be seen. Regardless, it was an adventure well worth experiencing, and there's no question that we'll all be back for more.

-Derek