We spent a fair bit of time on the Lost Coast and enjoyed it immensely. After leaving Usal we hit highway 1 and the North Coast and found it packed with just as many curves and spectacular views as we had been enjoying, the big change was we were back on pavement.
We enjoyed a quiet night at Needle Rock. After sitting around the fire and watching falling stars we called it a night and somewhere between then and the morning a rainstorm passed. If it needs to rain, night is the perfect time, but I did get to wondering about the steep narrow windy road on the way out. Before departing we checked out some of the history stored in the visitors museum. It was quite amazing to see the amount of development from over a hundred years ago in what now appears to be nearly untouched wilderness. Before too long we packed up and headed south and were able to get out of the steep section without issue. We were told that Usal road going south was closed for the season. As we understood it Usal Road is even more interesting than some of the other roads we had already traversed and considering the rain we didn’t even check, we just headed inland to highway 101 and south to Leggett where we took highway 1 to the south end of Usal road. Luckily we had stopped for fuel in Leggett and the attendant described the turnoff from highway 1 to Usal. We never did see the ‘tiny’ sign he described but the rest of his information was enough to find the road with just barely missing it on our first pass. From there we made our way north on Usal road for the few miles the road was open to Usal campground.
Let’s see, where did we leave this off? Oh right, a morning walk on Mattole Beach. We headed back to camp and enjoyed a few more views. It appeared that the last of the morning fog was spilling out of the coast range and onto the beach.
We headed south. Mattole road south of Mattole beach gets to be a bit sketchy with steep twisty portions washed out by rains. Maybe a bit of log truck traffic would justify a bit of maintenance…. just saying.