Old Coast Highway

What is now a splendid hiking trail used to be the Redwood Highway (101), now the Old Coast Highway. The old highway was abandoned in 1935 for its present route. This particular length of coastal trail travels over tall coastal bluffs amidst alder and second-growth redwood then leads inland to and through old-growth redwoods to meet Damnation Creek Trail.

Rambling along the old Redwood Highway is truly a unique hiking experience. Most of the route is so overgrown by vegetation that it at first seems like your basic single-track trail; however its highway heritage is obvious when you realize you’re hiking along a fairly flat and wide roadbed – and in places you can still see the painted centerline on the pavement!

There’s nothing The Trailmaster likes more than to see a highway repurposed as a hiking trail, then watch nature creep in, take over, and narrow the once proud two-lane down to a humble footpath. It’s poetic justice for a landscape once carved up by engineers. Hike it and you’ll notice that the redwoods don’t just reclaim land – they reclaim dignity.

A fine diversion along the way is Enderts Beach, one of the best-kept secrets on the North Coast. At low tide, wander among tidepools filled with purple sea urchins, starfish clinging like ornaments to the rocks, and anemones that open and close like strange green flowers. Driftwood piles high along the shore, stacked like nature’s own sculpture garden, while sea stacks punctuate the surf just offshore. It’s the kind of place that invites lingering – bring a sandwich, sit on a log, and feel smug that you’ve found a beach where solitude still trumps selfie-sticks.

If you just want to see old-growth redwoods, start at the Damnation Creek trailhead (see description) and hike north. Figure on a mellow, more or less level, 10-mile round trip for this redwoods-only hike.

Last Chance Trail is the northernmost stretch of the California Coastal Trail; this is the “last chance” to walk part of the Coastal Trail (part hiker’s dream, part reality) before it slips across the border to become the Oregon Coast Trail.