California’s Lost Coast , 80 miles of unspoiled shoreline that begins about 50 miles north of Mendocino, is as raw and rugged as it gets. The reason is simple. In the 1920s, when road crews were building Highway 1 along the coast, the steep mountains here simply forced them to give up. They swung the road over the hills and merged it with U.S. 101, leaving behind a blessedly forgotten stretch of coast.

The area is accessible from 101 at Garberville (230 miles north of San Francisco and 60 miles south of Eureka) and, farther north, from the town of Ferndale, though these roads to the coast remain fairly rough. The 35-mile Lost Coast Trail follows the wild Pacific’s edge from the Mattole Trailhead to Black Sands beach.

Mattole Campground is a good place to start; there are 14 campsites right on a windswept beach. From here, the Lost Coast Trail laces in and out of redwood and fir forests, climbs up and down coastal canyons draining to the sea, and emerges onto lonely beaches and into meadows filled with California poppies, blue brush lupines, foxglove, and wild purple lilies. The seascape is second to none: white-capped ocean, exploding surf, sheer cliffs, and sea stacks. Make sure you get a local tide chart; some sections of the trail are impassable at high tide. (Allow three days for this hike.)

Inside Tip: In summer, this is a popular weekend hike; midweek you’ll have the trail largely to yourself.