California Coastal Trail

[Natalie Larson]

I have had a hard time coming up with a fastest known time for traversing California's coastline, between Oregon and Mexico, or the California Coastal Trail, an incomplete route that requires detours now.  I know Mo and Jo recently made the trek supported in 96 days www.cbs8.com/story/32691568/mojos-coastwalk-ends-at-border-field-state-park.

I will leave tomorrow for San Diego and intend to walk/jog the coastline up to the Oregon border, solo, self-supported.  I will be documenting this journey with a SPOT tracker, GPS watch, blog, Instagram, and Facebook, perhaps my journey can set a benchmark at least for a female, solo, self-supported traversal of the coast. 

SPOT: share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0JOn8tMMamKeCo3fQeamPF7Fk3FNvkhFi
Strava: www.strava.com/athletes/arationallens
Instagram: www.instagram.com/arationallens/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/natalie.larson.9
Blog: arationallens.blogspot.com

[natalie]

SPOT device data will be private for security 

[aligg]

Awesome! I recently attempted a run across California, made it about 175 miles. I hope you have so much fun!

[natalie]

Thank you aligg!!

To anyone following my journey, I am restarting today. Here is what I posted on Facebook:

Take two. I didn't realize staying at a friend's house would disqualify me from a "self supported" fastest known time on the California Coastal Trail. In retrospect it's obvious. But this gave me the opportunity to drop a few things I realized immediately were weighing me down, namely my solar charger. While it is a nice insurance it is really heavy. This means I might not be online as much for this trip. Only when I'm near a charger. Thank you to my friends @ffcccompetetor_erlyell for taking my excess things for me and giving me a place to stay last night. Now I realize that even handing my things off to friends would be considered support, it's taking advantage of anything that's not available to everyone. So I plan to start my journey again this morning at the Mexico Border.

[natalie]

I arrived in Oregon yesterday, Wednesday, October 4th, around 7am. I'll post a write up with Spot data, my GPS watch died about halfway through so went on just Spot.

[natalie]

I am working on a full trip report.  Here is a map I made of the route using my SPOT data:

www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1Y24QKJTSnzyF3fX_Oim8edmGr6Y&ll=37.17948836194591%2C-120.76228000000003&z=6

Here is a link to my SPOT data from August 19th to October 4th, provided to me by SPOT.  Note that I restarted the run on August 20th, so am using August 20th as my official start date.  

drive.google.com/file/d/0ByHLbwinI0Rcd0U3Zl9jdi1URjBxbnhaTVZvY0RwdDA1UUVF/view?usp=sharing

The SPOT timestamps seem to be seven hours ahead of Pacific time.  Looking back at my SPOT and FitBit GPS data, I began the run on August 20th, 2017 at approximately 12:10:58 and ended the run on October 4th, 2017 at approximately 06:51:07.  This works out to 44 days, 18 hours, 40 minutes and 9 seconds.

The Wikiloc mapping program calculated 1,171 miles based on my GPS data, so I seem to have covered 26.1513 miles per day, nearly a marathon.  There were a few boat rides and the Uber through Camp Pendleton was 20 miles, so I'm estimating that I ran/hiked roughly 25.5 miles per day.

A link to my Strava page, which shows my FitBit GPS data. My FitBit stopped charging about three quarters of the way into the run and I abandoned using it.
www.strava.com/athletes/2326452


When I had to cross rivers I usually took the official alternate route so that I wouldn't have to hire a boat. If I encountered a section during high tide I sometimes also took the alternate route. A couple of sections of the trail were closed, so I had to take the highway. I had to get an Uber through Camp Pendleton because they wouldn't let me run through, and I couldn't run on the highway -- I figured this would be an issue every runner would encounter and Uber/Lyft are available to everyone for this section.  I swam across one small river near the border with Mexico, waded across another, and took public ferries across two others, I also hired one private boat as the trail recommended.  There were small sections that were not well marked where the trail seemed to disappear, I did the best I could to follow it.  There was also one section where the trail markers differed from the official trail maps, I followed the markers.

I did the trek solo, self-supported.  I did not meet any family or friends along the route, with the exception of one person I knew who I happened to run into at a Whole Foods in Santa Cruz, she thought I had moved to the area and had no idea I was doing the run.  I did not get in any vehicles with the exception of those mentioned above.  I had to make detours along the route to buy supplies, shoes, a jacket, etc.  and when I did this I tried to leave from and return to the same place on the trail.  Per my research it seemed allowable to accept gifts from trail angels I encountered, so if offered supplies, free meals from restaurants, or free housing/hotel rooms I sometimes took these offers.  Nothing was pre-planned and I had never met any of these people before.

I am compiling my trip report here: natalielarsoncct.blogspot.com/  it is a work in progress

[Peter Bakwin]

Beautiful report Natalie! Your adventure & experience reminds me exactly why I started this site - I wanted a place where people could share stories like yours!

Excerpt: Far off in the distance, I could see a lone light on the beach. I ran toward it, probably for a mile or two. As I approached, I could make out figures around a fire, their shadows made it look like a cult gathering. I stopped to say hello, it was a group of three young men, drinking. One of them stepped up to talk to me, and I told him about my trek. Everything he said seemed profound, there in the middle of the night on the deserted beach. "What devil possessed you to do this?" he asked. I told him that for some reason, unlike other people, I wasn't content not doing things like this. I wasn't sure why, it's just the way I'm built. He ended the conversation with, "I hope you find what you're looking for."

And another: This trip has given me a new appreciation for the utility of braids, trail mix, bungee cords

[natalie]

Thank you so much Peter!!

[Peter Bakwin]

"Excerpt" (stoopid iPhone autocorrect!)

[Brian]

Hi Natalie! I just read about your OKT in Ultrarunning magazine, which led me here, where the comments made me certain I’d like to read your blog, which appears to be invite-only. Is your complete report (which has excerpts posted by another user here) available elsewhere and/or can I get an invite to read it? Please and thank you!!

[Brian]

Created a profile so you can actually respond to me.