A large swath of what had long been private land on Northern California’s Lost Coast is now slated for public access.
Related Articles
Where We Live: Nature illuminated at Coyote Hills Regional Park
San Francisco Bay island sold at auction for $3.8 million to John Muir Land Trust
Here’s when you can visit all national parks for free in 2025
On Angel Island, some Asian-Americans are learning their family’s painful history for the first time
Travel back to San Jose’s wild days at the massive History Park
The 5-square-mile parcel called Lost Coast Redwoods was acquired this month by the Bureau of Land Management, three years after Save the Redwoods League bought the land from the parent of timber company Soper Wheeler.
The sale price for the property, which was appraised at $56 million, was $44 million in federal and state grants. The landscape, stretching across 8 miles of ocean frontage, was assembled from multiple land purchases by Save the Redwoods League dating back to 2008, said Sam Hodder, president of the league.
Save the Redwoods’ 2021 purchase of the property, for $36.9 million, was called the largest coastal land preservation deal in Northern California in more than 20 years.
At that time, the league said: “We hope to work with public agency partners (and tribal nations of the region) to develop public access to this forest and a stretch of the Lost Coast that has been private for more than a century.” It said the deal opened the possibility of extending the Lost Coast Trail southward.
The 58-mile trail, a legendary backpacking route on the beaches and coastal bluffs, now ends at Shady Dell, marked by the hiker icon on the map.
After this month’s transfer, a Bureau of Land Management spokesperson told the Ukiah Daily Journal that the agency “is working on a public access and recreation plan for the property,” including trails and campgrounds.
The area of old- and second-growth redwoods currently has no publicly accessible roads or trails. It is at the south end of the Lost Coast, where Highway 1 cuts inland for about 100 miles between Rockport and Eureka.
The Lost Coast Redwoods property was first logged in the 1880s. Soper Wheeler, which called it DeVilbiss Ranch, had owned it since 1963, according to Save the Redwoods.
