SUSAN SWETNAM
THE LOST COAST “This country looks like Scotland,” we told each other as we crossed the grassy uplands stretching toward the sea. We picked our way on the rambling two-lane over ridges, down into gullies past tumble-down farm sheds, sensing the approach of the great drop-off ahead. To the south, the King Range reared straight up from the surf, 4,000’ in three miles. Psychedelic-yellow Scotch broom illuminated the hillsides; redbuds glowed pink. Then, abruptly, not Scotland at all, but Redwoods, shafts of sunlight filtering through the heavy canopy, the verdant ground teeming with ferns. “Check the map,” Ford had said an hour before, as we stopped for gas on Highway 101. “I think we’re pretty near something I’ve always wanted to see. And that was how we came to the Lost Coast for the first time, turning aside from our spring break trajectory toward Napa Valley, heading for a very different kind of place. The highway fell away, down a great vertiginous cleft to Cape Mendocino, the westernmost point in California. We turned south at the thundering waves, along with literal edge of the sea. Cows grazed in salty grass on the inland side, nestled under the plateau’s ramparts. A bull rolled on his back in spring bliss, raising clouds of butterflies. “God,” Ford drew a deep breath, “This is incredible.” We stopped to inhale the ocean’s pounding, to absorb the utter stillness of the air. We’d long been connoisseurs of obscure Intermountain West outbacks 73
