Mendocino Section 4

Suddenly the Coastal Trail hits the pavement for the first time since around Shelter Cove. Until we can get this section off the pavement, CCT hikers will need to follow Highway 1 on one of its steepest and most twisting segments for the next 9¾ miles. If you walk this stretch of highway be especially careful to stay out of the road. Though traffic isn't usually heavy, it does include plenty of logging trucks and RVs, many of which have trouble staying in their lane and even on the pavement. Read the feature CCT Needs a Trail Corridor off Highway 1 around Rockport and lobby your elected representatives to complete the CCT.

Follow the highway shoulder south on a gentle descent through the lush valley of Cottaneva Creek. Where you cross the creek around ¼ mile, abundant blackberry patches may offer a tasty snack in summer. Continue south past old ranch buildings and into the forest.

Beyond 2¼ miles, watch on the right for Mendocino Redwood Company's Demonstration Forest where the only outhouse and picnic area along this section offer a shady pleasant place to rest. A short side trail explores a scenic, wooded stretch of Cottaneva Creek.

Continue along Highway 1 through l the ghost town of Rockport. At 3¼ miles you cross a bridge over the South Fork of Cottaneva Creek as the creek veers west down its canyon to the Pacific Ocean. Climb a big hill on the winding highway, gaining 710 feet in elevation in less than 2 miles. Just before the summit at 5¼ miles, a clearcut on your left offers a view north to the Lost Coast.

Highway 1 descends gradually then steeply by sweeping curves. After a grand view of the coast south all the way to Mendocino at 5½ miles, follow the highway shoulder as it drops through the wooded canyon of a fork of Hardy Creek. At 7⅛ miles you round a bend to the right, and the Pacific comes into view. Cross Hardy Creek at 7¼ miles and climb along the shoulder to the ocean bluff where a broad shoulder on the right provides stunning views north to razor-edge Cape Vizcaino and south past Hardy Rock to the northern Mendocino coast.

Follow the highway south as it climbs and descends with ocean vistas, crossing Juan Creek at 8⅛ miles. Around 8⅜ miles you pass another ghost logging settlement at Union Landing where nothing remains of a small lumber town that lasted into the 1920s. As you continue along Highway 1, state park lands begin west of the road at 8½ miles, but no trail provides relief for your road-weary soles until you come to section's end at the vista point on the right at 9¾ miles.