King Range National Conservation Area · California
The Lost Coast Trail
runs on the tide
Twenty-five miles of coastline too steep for a highway. Three sections of it disappear underwater twice a day — which makes a tide chart the most important thing in your pack.
- Length
- ~25 miles
- Typical
- 3 – 4 days
- Route
- Mattole → Black Sands
- Permit
- Required to camp
The thing that gets people hurt
Three tide gates
Most of the trail is beach at the foot of a mountain range. In three places there is no beach at high tide and no way up — the surf runs straight into the cliff. People have died here. Plan every day around these three.
Punta Gorda
The most forgiving of the three, and the one closest to the northern trailhead. The old lighthouse is here.
Sea Lion Gulch to Randall Creek
The tightest window on the trail. A 2.5-foot ceiling means a short stretch of the day on many tide cycles.
Enter on a falling tide onlyMiller Flat to Gitchell Creek
The last gate before Shelter Cove. Getting caught here at the end of a long day is a common way to end up stuck.
Enter on a falling tide onlyAlways enter a gated section on a falling tide. If you start on a rising tide and misjudge it, the water closes behind you as well as ahead of you. A falling tide gives you a widening margin instead of a shrinking one.
Bring a printed tide table for your exact dates and check it against BLM's current guidance before you go. There is no cell service out there to look it up, and thresholds and conditions can change.
Before you can go
Permits
Overnight trips in the King Range Wilderness need a permit from the Bureau of Land Management. Day hikes don't.
- 1
Book on Recreation.gov
Permits release on a rolling three-month window. Summer dates go fast — set a reminder for the day yours opens rather than checking hopefully.
- 2
Or try a walk-up
The visitor center holds a small number of first-come, first-served permits, for up to three people per day. Viable on a weekday, a gamble on a summer weekend.
- 3
Rent or bring a bear canister
Hard-sided canisters are required. Shuttle companies and the BLM visitor center rent them if you don't own one.
- 4
Day hiking? Nothing needed
Walk out from Black Sands Beach and back with no permit at all. Same tide rules apply.
Logistics
Planning the walk
Which direction
Almost everyone walks north to south, Mattole Beach down to Black Sands Beach. The summer wind usually comes from the north, so you'll have it behind you rather than in your face for three days.
The standard move is to leave your car at the Black Sands Beach trailhead in Shelter Cove and shuttle up to Mattole. It's a winding drive of roughly an hour and a half — and it means that when you finish, tired and sandy, your car is waiting rather than a pickup.
Shuttles
Lost Coast Adventure Tours
Licensed, permitted, and insured, running Black Sands to Mattole. They plan around the tides as part of the service, which is worth something on a trail like this one.
lostcoastadventures.comOr skip the shuttle
Plenty of people hike out and back from a single trailhead instead. You see the same coast, you just see it twice — and you keep your schedule entirely your own.
Water, camp, and terrain
- Creek crossings every 1.5 to 2 miles. Filter there. Carrying four days of water is unnecessary and miserable.
- Camp is found, not made. The trail alternates between beach and grassy bluff, and most of the bluff is flat enough to pitch on. Use established clearings where they exist.
- You cannot camp in Shelter Cove itself. The last legal camping is north of Black Sands Beach.
- The sand is the hard part. Long stretches are soft or cobbled. Twenty-five miles here is not twenty-five miles on dirt — plan shorter days than you think you need.
- Layers, always. Wind and damp are possible in any month, including August.
- Watch for sneaker waves. Rest on the upper slope, never at the waterline, and keep your eyes on the ocean.
- Ticks and rattlesnakes. Both are common along the whole route. The ticks are the ones you're more likely to miss.
The southern trailhead
Black Sands Beach
Dark, coarse sand running for miles under the King Range, and the finish line for the northern section of the trail. It's the most photographed thing in Shelter Cove.
The shore drops off steeply and generates powerful shore break. The pebbles wash out from under your feet as the water pulls back. People have drowned at this beach.
If you want to get in the water, go to the beach by the boat launch in town instead. That's the swimming beach.
Beachcombing is the thing to do here instead. The stones are black, rounded, and often striped with white — worth walking slowly for. Sunbathing on the warm rocks is a better use of the beach than wading.
Little Black Sands Beach
A smaller, more sheltered cove a short walk from the main beach — and only reachable on foot at low tide. At low water you can walk from here into town, which makes for a good out-and-back if you time it.
You can also drive to it. Parking is at the end of Dolphin Drive, just past the Castle Inn.
You don't have to do all of it
Day hiking from Shelter Cove
No permit, no shuttle, no bear canister. Walk north from Black Sands Beach as far as the tide and your legs allow, then turn around.
This is genuinely the same trail and the same coastline that backpackers spend four days on — you're just sampling it. On a good low tide you can get well up the beach and back in a morning.
The one rule still applies: The one rule still applies: the Miller Flat to Gitchell Creek gate is the first stretch you'll reach heading north. Check the tide before you start, go out on a falling tide, and turn around with margin to spare.
An ultrarunner covering the entire trail — over fifty miles — in about eleven hours. Not a template for your trip, but a remarkable look at the whole coastline end to end.
Watch the full trail on YouTube
Stay at the trailhead
BlackSands sits above the beach where the trail ends. A shower, a kitchen, and a hot tub are a good way to finish four days of sand — or a good way to start, the night before your shuttle.
View BlackSands Rental