Gold Bluffs Beach Camping

Drawing and writing messages in the sand.

I was ecstatic when Matt told me we were camping two nights at the beach during our Redwoods Megavacation.  We pitched our tent at the Gold Bluffs Beach Campground in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.  This is one of the California state parks that is managed as part of Redwoods National Park.  

That little human-dot down there is Matt.

As with the Baxter Environmental Campground, beach camping was a new experience for us.  We've camped on the sand before in Colorado and Arizona, but never where we could be lulled to sleep by the rhythms of the waves. Oddly enough for a megavacation with "redwoods" right in the name, beach camping was probably the highlight I was most looking eagerly anticipating.  It did not disappoint me.  The experience was downright spectacular.

Our campsite was in sight of the waves, but there was this section of grassy dunes between the beach and the campground proper.  The plants were really neat.  The sand was amazing.

I love the beach.  I love the ocean.  I love the sky and the birds and the peace.  I love the fierce energy of it all.

It was a gorgeous beach.  And so sparsely populated.

I hate how far it is to a toilet when I'm waaaaaaay out on the shoreline surrounded by all that sloshing water.  ;)  That's my only complaint.  Well...that, I guess, and how smelly the ocean can be sometimes.  All that seal and bird poop and decomposing sea plants.  I'll never forget the juxtaposition of how gorgeous La Jolla Cove was versus how horrific it smelled when we went there with Adam.  It was an experience in extremes.  Fortunately, Gold Bluffs beach smelled just fine.

A morning walk with Matt.

Our first day at the beach was warm and calm.  It was beach paradise.  The sunshine felt amazing.  To my surprise, it was so calm that I could not even fly my kite and that almost never happens in my experience.  No matter.  The beach, for me, is endless amounts of fun.  Matt and I played in the waves and the sand.  We drew pictures and wrote messages, letting the waves erase them.  We examined shells and rocks as they washed up in the surf.  In an exuberant state of sheer delight I did some headstands.  We gazed at those endless waves, hypotonized by their ceaseless advance and retreat, advance and retreat.  We got lost in the vast expanse that spread before us to the horizon.  

Headstands are one of the things I feel compelled to do when I'm shooting the moon with happiness. The sand was a delightfully cushioning headrest compared to the mountaintops and meadows I've used in the past.

Later, we fell asleep in our tent to the rhythmic ebb and flow of the water and it felt like a dream.  Nature's sound machine.  It felt like a particularly surreal day--starting in towering redwoods and concluding with sandy beaches.  How very California!

A sandy Ginger kitty.

The second day we awoke to an impressive fog.  Matt had gotten us a permit at the Tall Trees Grove hiking area so we returned inland for a morning communion with those epic giants.  That was a really cool hike.  The trees were glorious and it was a rather wild feeling grove.  Tall Trees Trail is more regulated than the rest of the groves we explored.  I think they issue a maximum of 50 permits  per day so it has a real sense of solitude about it.  Though, to be fair, I was pleasantly surprised throughout the megavacation at how few people we encountered in the various parks we visited.  This was the first "real hike" of the trip rather than just another stroll through a redwood grove.  We gained/lost a notable amount of elevation and worked up a bit of a sweat on the trail.  

Both while we were there and since we've been back we've had a lot of people ask about the "trees you can drive a car through."  We didn't seek out any of those attractions because they seem sort of sad and gimmicky to me.  We did unexpectedly pass through one human-sized tree tunnel in the Tall Trees Grove though.

After our hike at Tall Trees we stopped in McKinleyville to restock on ice and a couple other things before returning to the beach.  When we got back to Gold Bluff we discovered the wind had picked up with a gusto.  So much so that our tent had unstaked itself from the sand and tumbled away.  Fortunately it got tangled up with the site's bear box so it didn't completely fly off and end up in the ocean or something.  I guess our tent stakes aren't really cut out for sand.  Live and learn.  The weather was such a dramatic contrast to the dead calm of the afternoon before.

Hanging on the beach in the sunshine.

After rescuing the tent we went kite flying, which is one of my favorite things to do on the beach these days.  The breeze is usually as endless as the waves and I can fly forever.  Literally until I get tired and quit.  The wind at home is more fickle than that.  I have a dual string Prism kite that Matt bought me for Christmas, oh, a decade or so ago.  I love steering it, making it do loops and swoops.  Matt even got "Polly Pocket," our newer single-string Prism, up in the air.  He is not generally as successful with kites as I am.  He let Polly reel all the way out to the end of the string.  We'd never been somewhere with the necessary space to really let her rip like that before.

Matt flying Polly Pocket in the foreground, me and my dual string in the center, and the bluffs for which the campground was named in the back.

We walked back up to our site for diner which took longer than expected so we only really got to enjoy the tail end of sunset.  The last shifting pink hues were still lovely though.  Either way, the waves stole the show the whole time anyways.  There is something about the relentless energy that really dazzles and baffles me.  They never stop.  It is poetic somehow.  Life never stops.  Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.  We are all connected.  On and on and on...

Isn't the color inside this mussel just radiant?!

We sat on the sand until dark when the cool sea air made me too chilly, then returned to our site for a fire.  The half moon was surprisingly bright and the stars were fabulous.  It really felt like summer was winding down as we sat there.  It was hard to believe and yet...it is.  

Smiles for beachy miles.

When we put out the fire and curled up in the tent we enjoyed the ceaseless travels of the waves as we drifted off to a very blissful sleep.

The thick fog that greeted us on our first morning at Gold Bluffs.

The next morning was again foggy, though no nearly so much as the previous day.  We immediately set out for a long beach walk.  I love following all the tiny footprints left in the sand.  Birds and racoons and rodents and bugs all very busy, busy.  It was so peaceful and perfect.  Almost the whole time we were on the beach we had it to ourselves.  It was like a private beach...in a national park!  I hadn't been expecting that.  It was even better than I could have hoped.

We were glad to have had a couple of days and nights at the beach.  The weather changed so dramatically over the duration of our stay.  It was cool to see how different it could feel from one day to the next.

After our morning walk, I caught up on my journal and wrote some postcards while Matt cooked breakfast.  Then we drove to Fern Canyon a few miles up the road for a hike.  After our canyon adventure we retuned to Gold Bluff to break camp and take a quick shower before we left.  The hot water in the shower house was broken though and I wasn't that brave.  Matt was though.  It sounded...invigorating.

A collection of empty crab shells that Matt gathered.

We had to check-out of the campground by 11am, but we weren't quite done with the beachy fun yet so we drove the day-use area next to the campground and set up there for a while.  I flew my kite some more, but it was too windy for Polly Pocket.  Matt collected crab shells and relaxed on a big piece of driftwood until I'd had my fill.  We sure had a good time on the beach.

Living the kite flying on the beach dream!

Then it was time to leave the sparkling open vistas of the coast behind and plunge back into the sun dappled mystery of the redwood forest.   What a world we live in!!!  Magical.

Critter tracks in the sand on our morning stroll up the beach.