This was taken at the beginning of a Saturday hike down the Guthrie Creek trail, on BLM's Lost Coast Headlands site near Ferndale, California. It's only a mile each way, and about 800 feet elevation change, one of the easier hikes I've done this year. It's well worth the minimal effort.
Most people stop at the Fleener Creek trailhead not far above Centerville Beach. It's a shorter and easier trail, but it's also more crowded. Continue on the one lane road, winding and in places unpaved, and one drops down into the Fleener Creek valley, rises up the far side, and then winds past coastal grasslands and patches of Sitka spruce and Douglas fir forest. The terrain seems somehow disconcerting, disorienting to some first-time visitors; I presume that it's the twisted and broken topography of this young and unstable place a handful of miles north of the Mendocino triple junction. In any case, eventually there's a small parking lot on the right with tide tables conveniently posted and the Guthrie Creek trailhead just beyond.
Although not currently targeted for restoration, it does show some diversity. In the foreground of the photo, on the south-facing slope, is coastal scrub. At the bottom a patch of grassland is visible, probably weedy annuals although it's no longer grazed. A ribbon of willow-alder riparian threads through the valley. On the opposite north-facing slope patches of Sitka spruce intermingle with more scrub.
The pocket beach below, much of it safely accessible only at low tide, is bordered by nearly vertical mudstone cliffs. It's a quiet place, with few visitors except the occasional AV coming down the beach and even fewer hikers on the trail. It's been different every time I've visited, more than a dozen times now; a section of cliff newly collapsed, the stream mouth in a new location every time, driftwood and large tree stumps in new arrangements. It's a good reminder of how dynamic nature is, in this place where winter storms and the occasional earthquake re-arrange things at will.
