Mattole River,
King Range National Recreation Area

The Mattole River marks the northern boundary of the Bureau of Land Management's King Range National Conservation Area. From the trailhead at Mouth of Mattole Recreation Site, the Lost Coast Trail travels 24 miles along the beach to Shelter Cove. Shipwrecks, a variety of marine life, and magnificent black sand beaches are some of the attractions of what many walkers consider the wildest coastline in California.

The sleepy, storybook hamlet of Petrolia, located near the river mouth, was the site of the state's first producing oil wells, drilled here in 1865. Leland Stanford's Mattole Petroleum Company had the most successful well--Union Well--which produced a hundred barrels of oil at a one barrel a day pace.

After the oil boom ended, settlers came to the Mattole Valley to take advantage of the fertile farmland and rich pasture. Mattole Valley is one of the wettest places on the Pacific Coast. The town of Honeydew, immediately to the north of the King Range, records an average of more than a hundred inches of rain a year. During extremely wet years, more than two hundred inches of rain may fall on the Lost Coast.

Adjacent grazing and logging have unfortunately taken their toll on the Mattole River. As heavy rains washed the denuded hillsides to the sea, millions of cubic yards of rock and gravel were dumped into the Mattole. Gravel bars formed, which altered the course of the river. Time and nature are slowly healing the Mattole, but the river will continue to meander off-course for many more years.
California's best beach backpacking trip is the trek from the mouth of the Mattole to Shelter Cove. A more moderate journey of three miles along the Lost Coast Trail takes the walker to the abandoned Coast Guard Lighthouse at Punta Gorda.

In 1911, after several ships were wrecked on the rocks and reefs off the King Range coast, a lighthouse was built a mile south of Punta Gorda--whose name means "massive point." The lighthouse, which shined its warning beacon for four decades, shut down in 1951 due to high maintenance costs.

Directions to trailhead: From Highway 101 in Fortuna, take the Ferndale exit and follow the signs to Petrolia. Turn west on Lighthouse Road, following it five miles to its end at the Mouth of the Mattole Recreation Site.

The walk: Before heading south, walk a quarter-mile north to the mouth of the river. Sea gulls and ospreys circle overhead. Harbor seals frequent the tidal area where the Mattole meets the Pacific.

Walk south along the wild coast. The low dunes back of the beach are dotted in spring with sea rocket and sand verbena. Thin waterfalls cascade over the steep cliffs to the beach. Two miles from the trailhead, you'll round Punta Gorda, which serves as a rookery for the Steller's sea lion. A mile south of the point is the old Punta Gorda Lighthouse. Beyond is another twenty miles of beach, the wildest in California.Back to Hiking the Lost Coast