One by one, the other seven hikers stepped on and across him. “Walk across me, and you can get to the next headland where there’s a trail,” Kortum reportedly said as he laid across a thicket of wild blackberry vines, every inch of his lanky frame bridging the void between drowning and safety. He laid like a plank for several minutes - a human bridge for each of his friends to walk over to get to safety. Kortum, an experienced hiker and decades-long coastal advocate regarded as the father of the Sonoma County environmental movement, donned his heavy raincoat, tossed his backpack over the ravine and stretched his body over the breach in the rock wall. If they could climb over the gap, he reckoned they would be safe from the rising tide. The oldest among them, Bill Kortum, spotted a gap in the ridgeline where a small creek trickled into the ocean. The volunteers feared for their lives as the fog cleared overhead and the tide rolled up to their hiking boot-laden feet.įirst, to the ankles, then, to the shins, finally, up to their chests and rising fast - powerful high tide waves threatened to suck the hikers to sea or submerge them completely.ĭesperate to get off their receding perch on the sand, the eight hikers surveyed the coastline for escape routes. The group ranged from 44 to 68 years of age, including one woman who described herself as “not a hiker at all.” The aim of their expedition a quarter-century ago was not to pull off an extraordinary athletic feat it was to raise awareness about the trail that they loved. The team was made up of volunteers from Coastwalk California, a non-profit organization focused on coastal access and dedicated to the completion of the California Coastal Trail. It was on one of these remote sandy shorelines that the first group of eight hikers attempting to complete a walk along the California Coast from Oregon all the way to the border with Mexico was in serious danger of drowning only a few days into their 1,150-mile journey in the summer of 1996. The beachhead is totally submerged and won’t appear again for hours. ![]() Once the tides hit the bluffs, there is nowhere to run. ![]() The Lost Coast is also known for its life-threatening high tides, which are hard to predict and quick to sweep hikers away to sea. Where the King Range meets the sea, jagged cliffs rise from the ocean like castle walls - a fortress between the beach and the rest of the world. Humboldt County’s 25-mile Lost Coast is known for its stunning beauty.
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