Every Trail Tells a Story
Gold Bluffs Beach
Watch Roosevelt elk in one of their most striking natural settings.
Discover rare coastal waterfalls, including elegant Gold Dust Falls.
Walk a wild beach with ocean views, prairie meadows, and sea-stack oddities.
Wildlife-watching, waterfalls and a wilderness beach are just a few of the highlights of a hike along the northern reaches of Gold Bluffs Beach. While even one of these en route attractions makes for a compelling hike, the mere prospect of so many engaging environments can put a hiker into sensory overload before reaching the trailhead.
Gold Bluffs Beach itself is a marvel. For one thing, the name. Gold was indeed discovered here in the 1850s, though the “gold dust” washed down from the bluffs proved too fine to make many miners rich. Whatever the miners didn’t find in wealth, the modern hiker finds in riches. The beach extends mile upon mile, dark and dramatic, lined with driftwood, sculpted into twisted shapes. The bluffs rise behind, green in summer, misty and melancholy in winter. And in front? The endless Pacific, loudly hammering its rhythm into the shore.
This is prime Roosevelt elk country. You may have seen elk grazing in Elk Meadow along Highway 101, but here they belong to the beach and bluffs, ghosting in and out of the mist, antlers backlit by a fading sun. Somehow they seem more regal, more wild, in this seaside kingdom.
As if the elk and ocean weren’t enough, waterfalls pour from the forested bluffs in a kind of natural encore. Waterfalls near the coast are a rarity, so the presence of three of them clustered in close proximity to the Coastal Trail is a special treat indeed. The finest, Gold Dust Falls, is a slender ribbon of water that tumbles 80 feet down a fern-lined chute. An unnamed waterfall is located just south of Gold Dust; another is located just north. The sound of water falling so close to the salt air feels like a secret revealed.
And then there’s the journey northward, where prairie grasses wave over the dunes, where the trail ducks in and out of alder groves and spruce forest, and where the ocean’s roar is your constant companion even when it hides from view. In the end, the hike deposits you at Ossagon Rocks, curious sea-stack-like formations stranded at land’s end, not in their usual offshore location, as if the sea misplaced them.
Call it a beach walk, a wildlife safari, or a waterfall tour. Really, it’s all of these stitched together in one unforgettable outing along the Coastal Trail.
From Highway 101 in Orick, drive 2 miles north to signed Davison Road. Turn left (west) and proceed 7 miles to road’s end at the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park Fern Canyon trailhead.
Coastal Trail begins on the far side of Home Creek – an easy ford in summer but tricky in rainy months. Once across, the path leads briefly through alder forest before emerging onto grassy dunes where the ocean’s voice is ever-present. About a mile out, listen for falling water: an unsigned spur leads to a delicate, veil-like cascade framed in ferns.
A quarter mile farther, a short connector trail heads to Gold Dust Falls, the most dramatic of the trio, with a bench nearby for lingering. Continue on the main path to a third waterfall, equally worth a pause.
The trail then winds from forest to prairie, arriving at Butler Creek, once the site of a backcountry camp. Cross the creek, meander another half-mile over sand-verbena prairie, and reach Ossagon Rocks, the hike’s odd and memorable finale.