BLM Dispatch #29 - King Range National Conservation Area - Coastal Prairie
This is one of my favorite photos from my book.
My friend Noah and I set out from our temporary home at the Mattole Beach Campground on a ten-mile loop that would wind us high above the ocean and back again. Two miles in, after climbing nearly seven hundred feet along Prosper Ridge Road, the day shifted. An old two-track path through the prairie veered from the gravel road and we followed it toward Strawberry Rock. Within moments — a snap of the fingers — the clear blue September skies dissolved into fog, a curtain sweeping over the ridge and swallowing the sun whole.
I took this photo, then turned around to shoot some frames in the other direction. When I turned back, he had disappeared…
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BLM Dispatch #28 - King Range National Conservation Area, Part 1
I remember the exact moment I first heard about a magical place called the “Lost Coast.”
A friend described an undeveloped shoreline where steep mountains plunge straight into the sea, old-growth trees rise from a temperate rainforest, and the isolation is so complete that residents carry helicopter insurance.
It sounded like something out of a fairy tale. I assumed it must be in the Philippines, or off the coast of Africa, or tucked away in New Zealand — or at the very closest, somewhere in Hawaii.
When he told me it was in California, I practically knocked him over as I ran to my computer.
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