by Tony Miksak
 
My wife Joselyn and I have spent some time this summer walking the California Coastal Trail with motley groups of children and parents and puffing geezers like ourselves. It's called Coastwalk, and every summer this non-profit organization sponsors hikes in every one of California's 15 coastal counties. My wife calls it "binge walking."

The Mendocino portion of this summer's Coastwalk will be led by Bob Lorentzen, author of seven books and publisher and distributor of many more than that under his company name Bored Feet Publications. Bob is co-author of the newly published paperback, Hiking the California Coastal Trail. Actually this is volume one of two, covering a line in the beach sand where Oregon meets California, down to a few feet past the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The second volume, due next year, will cover southern California.

Bob wrote Hiking the California Coastal Trail with Richard Nichols, a Sebastopol resident who has been Executive Director of Coastwalk for seven years and a volunteer since 1983. Richard led the California Coastal Trail Whole Hike of 1996, walking almost 1200 miles form Oregon to Mexico in 112 days. Boy, were HIS feet tired. Bob Lorentzen was on that hike, but got off at about 300 miles, when the walk got to his house.

Coastwalk began with a one-time mass walk of the Sonoma county coast, an event designed to promote the need for a statewide trail and increased coastal access. Since then Coastwalk got incorporated, gathered numerous volunteers, and eventually ran these walks everywhere, every summer. If you ever have a chance to join one of these Coastwalks, do so. It's never less than an amazing, eye-opening experience.

On the 1996 Whole Hike Bob and Richard conceived the idea to write their book. What else was there to talk about, anyway? They've outdone themselves. Bob's experience publishing four different Hiker's hip pocket Guides has paid off here. The book couldn't be clearer, easier to use, or more professionally edited and illustrated.

The authors divide the hikes by county, and within each coastal county they typically spend several pages on about ten hikes, north to south. Each hike also provides information so day hikers can pop in and out at various convenient places, and people planning to camp along the coast can get a clear idea of what they're in for and where they're in for it.

Too much of our coast involves highway walking and detours around private property. Article 10 of the California Constitution guarantees public access, yet a good deal of land is restricted or otherwise off limits. The authors figure that 62 per cent of the current California Coastal Trail follows existing trails and beaches. Much of the rest detours onto nearby roads and highways "that gets you from point A to point B," they write," but isn't in most cases the ideal route." The authors figure that about 20 per cent of the coastal trail miles "are missing and need to be created."

In Mendocino county they provide information for 19 separate hikes, from the Lost Coast to Gualala Point Regional Park Visitor Center. Bob and Richard write, "With the second longest coastline in California, Mendocino County offers some of the greatest existing trail mileage along the California Coastal Trail as well as some of the biggest challenges for the trail's completion. Of Mendocino's 131-mile shore, about 52 miles, or 40 per cent of it, can only be followed along Highway One, a shocking amount of highway walking in a county renowned for one of the most beautiful and pristine coastlines in the state." They continue: "When you consider that another 26 miles... of the trail... can be followed only along secondary roads, the paltry 50 miles of actual trail that... follows along the Mendocino coast clearly falls far short of the ideal."

The authors usually understate their case, but in the introduction to the Mendocino walks they write, "Mendocino County calls out for and deserves so much more coastal preservation. If you walk the road miles of the Coastal Trail route through the county, you would be shocked at the miles of open and undeveloped shoreline just crying out to be saved. These areas include... the wild coast from Usal Road south to Cape Vizcaino – the southern end of the Lost Coast – including Rockport Beach, the broad coastal shelf between Bruhel Point and Abalobadiah Creek, the Caspar Headlands, and the dramatic bluffs, coves and promontories of the shoreline from Albion south to Manchester."

Joselyn and I this year joined the Monterey Coastwalk, walking along the coast to Asilomar, and then taking day hikes in Big Sur. The Monterey Coastwalk is the most popular of all, mainly because we tired and sweaty walkers get to sleep in the Monterey Bay Aquarium one night.

That's right. We were let into the aquarium through a side door, and after everything closed, were led to the restaurant and served a wonderful meal – all alone. No other tourists, no other kids. Just us, the lasagne, the sea lions on rocks, and the setting sun. After staff cleaned the aquarium viewing windows and vacuumed the floors we were let loose all night among the sharks and octopi, to sleep where we wanted and wander at 3 am through the dim corridors in search of a bathroom.

The kids of course laid out their sleeping bags in front of the leopard sharks. Two families slept at the foot of the two-story kelp garden. Joselyn and I found a quiet corner among the sand dollars. We would have had a sublime night, except Joselyn's inflatable pad decided to deflate. Maybe it got bit by a shark, who knows.

If you would like to go on a Coastwalk, or find out more about this wonderful organization always in need of money and volunteers, here's the contact information. You can get the Coastwalk brochure by calling 1 800 550-6854. The Coastwalk web page is located at www.sonic.net. When you get to that World Wide Web location, do a search on Coastwalk, and you'll arrive at their home page. That phone number again is 1 800 550-6854.

aired Thursday July 9 at 9:30 am and Sunday July 12 at 10:58am

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