lost coast, found self
what the lost coast - and two black bears - taught me about loneliness and love
last october, i hiked the lost coast alone ~ a trip that i hoped would be for two. i thought i was walking into a story about empowerment, but it became something entirely different: a confrontation with fear, heartbreak, and the strange mercy of being met by nature itself. i was rescued in the middle of the night with moderate to severe hypothermia. two black bears had been keeping watch over me. a year later, i’m still unpacking what that night meant ~ what the bears were teaching, what love was revealing, and how survival can sometimes look like surrender.
the full story
a year ago, i flew to northern california with a backpack, a tide chart, and a heart that had been split open.
the trip was meant to be a gift ~ i’d bought the backcountry permit for my partner’s birthday months before. he didn’t know. i was hoping we’d hike the lost coast together: a thirty-mile stretch of wild shoreline in northern california where the mountains drop straight into the sea. but by the time the date came in october, we weren’t together anymore, so i went alone.
people told me not to.
it’s not safe out there.
there are tweakers who camp on the beach.
you shouldn’t go alone as a woman.
friends offered to come, but i said no. i told myself i needed to do it for me ~ which was true ~ though i can see now that i also wanted to prove something. to him, probably. and definitely to myself.
what i didn’t realize until i started getting everything organized hat week was that the lost coast isn’t a trail you can just show up to. there is extensive planning involved. the hike runs along the ocean, and there are three sections you can only cross when the tide is below three feet. when i checked the charts, i realized the only safe windows that weekend were in the middle of the night.
still, i was going.