This is King Range National Conservation Area waaaaay up north in Humboldt county. No one lives here, no one goes here, no lives to tell the tale, etc. When they put in Highway 1 in the 1930’s, they routed it inland because they couldn’t engineer a road down these forbidding cliffs. There are no highways, no big roads. It’s called, romantically, ‘the Lost Coast’.
And that’s where bigfoot lives. You can tell because there’s a local religion. Church of Bigfoot, Scientist. which, inexplicably, seems to have only eight members. Their motto appears to be ‘no God without beer’. This ties directly into the other main activity in Humboldt county aside from squatching, craft beer. They’re becoming more and more famous for their breweries, (here’s a handy list ) usually situated near some spectacular inns for the discerning tourist like the old Benbow Inn .
Despite the recent attempts to brush up its image, Humboldt county remains major drug country, a sheriff’s no-go zone, even today, with marijuana being legal, there are large areas where outsiders are decidedly not welcome. The negative environmental impact of the drug growers is out of control in the area, particularly their tendency to clearcut forests, poison animals, and their destruction of creeks and fishing habitat by diverting the water. In the entire ‘Emerald Triangle’ there are only 240,000 people, with the largest chunk in of them in Eureka.
The famous 1960s film of bigfoot walking across clearing was filmed inland from King’s Range, but fairly close by. It’s a film that I’ve gotta admit, definitely gets better with age and camera stabilization. The film has and continues to generate controversy, and the history of this is actually quite interesting, over time, the film has been viewed as less likely to be a hoax as computer tracking has developed and it can be analyzed better. there was even a nat geo documentary about how the computer analysis has been done, and it’s very intriguing.
Bigfoot, weed, and beer. Why am I beginning to see a pattern? Good hiking up there, allegedly, and plenty of state-maintained trails. It’s one of the last great wildernesses of California, utterly mysterious, utterly wild. So, take a trip! Be cautious. Stay at a nice local inn. And bring a camera, just in case.
Church of Bigfoot, Scientist. lol. It’s like I’m not making Eynhallow up at all. California is just weird.
