Thursday May 27, 16.9mi/27.2km

Cooskie Creek (6.7/36ft) to Horse Mountain Creek (23.6mi/22ft) (CA)

It was a leisurely morning in camp, and I watched the lightening sky from my tent.

I hiked up on the sandy bluffs surrounding Cooskie Creek, so I could see the tide of the ocean. And taunt it, of course.

It was definitely low tide! Looking back down to camp, I could see the other groups slowly getting up.

We left camp at 8:30am, and had a nice walk on the enlarged beach at low tide.

The sunrise was coming over the cliffs, and it was awesome to watch the line of light.

After a little while, the beach turned less rocky, and it was nice easy walking. Occasionally a tiny side stream would come down and flow across the beach, making cool patterns in the sand.

We had a leisurely stroll all morning, hiking close to the ocean, daring it to get me wet. One of the warning signs said “never turn your back on the ocean”, so we did this often. Taunting the ocean! We had a nice lunch break at a driftwood structure.

The afternoon started off on a grassy plateau above the beach. It was a nice variety of hiking.

A couple of spots had some thriving poison oak. Most of it was off to one side and easy to avoid.

At the start of the hike, I had gotten each of us hand sanitizers. The cheapest ones just happened to be Disney princess themed, which got more entertaining each day.

The grassy pleateau also had some surprises.

The trail eventually turned into an old road, which was very enjoyable walking.

Eventually, we were forced off the plateau by a parcel of private property. Back down to the beach!

And some other type of sea critter…

There was no shortage of tidal sea life in this area. Our return to the plateau was welcomed though, as the tide was rising again.

Soon enough, we were back down on the beach. The rising tide was shrinking our walking area, and sometimes a wave came pretty close. I still continued taunting the ocean though.

The side Creek in this spot had formed a really strange sand sculpture!

The beach continued to shrink. We were almost at camp though…

We made it to a campsite at Horse Mountain Creek just after 5:30pm. A dozen other people were already there, and most of them were part of a guided group. They were camped down on the beach, and questionably close to the high tide line. We chose a campsite up on the grassy plateau, safe from the high tide. The view of sunset from camp was spectacular.

After a nice usual dinner of Knorr pasta and a tuna packet, I re-staked my tent. It’s a scenic spot, but it’s also really windy. We’ll see if it hold up thru the night….