Out There: The House of Hope

Punta Gorda Lighthouse

The United States has over 1,000 Lighthouses. Michigan has the most. Go figure. But save the most remote, the hardest to build, and some of most storied for Northern California. The Lost Coast in Humboldt County is punctuated by two lighthouses. Three miles from the northern point stands Punta Gorda Lighthouse and at the Southern end, at Shelter Cove, the Cape Mendocino Lighthouse.

This region represents one the most seismically active regions in North America. The "Mendocino Triple Junction" marks where three tectonic plates come together. It's for this reason alone that California Highway 1 departs its path along the coast and turns due east where it meanders up and over the coastal range and connects to U.S. Highway 101 twenty miles inland. The three plates are also responsible for forming the many jagged rock outcroppings along the coast; some close to shore, some miles offshore. The high seas, combined with the rocky, undulating coastline, resulted in scores of shipwrecks during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Punta Gorda, which translates to "fat point," is only eleven miles further east than the westernmost point in the contiguous United States, Cape Mendocino. Between 1899 and 1907 more than nine ships had met their fate in the seas in and around Punta Gorda. At mile three of the twenty-five mile Lost Coast trail the lighthouse offers an early welcomed site to hikers. It's powerful and introspective to think that you're looking at the same pristine coastline that the first head keeper, Frederick Harrington, gazed at over 100 years before.

Punta Gorda was decommissioned by the Coast Guard in 1951 in favor of a lighted buoy just off the point. Hippies occupied the buildings surrounding the lighthouse in the 1960s. After chasing the squatters away on repeated occasions, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management burned down the wooden structures (the quarters and stables) leaving just the lighthouse and a concrete building standing.

On more than a few occasions, after a late night start on the Lost Coast, I walked by the lighthouse and considered using it as shelter for the night. But with each passing, in the dead of night, I was able to determine that the lighthouse was, in fact, haunted by the countless souls that had met their fates in the waters off the point. The beach would be fine tonight.

Top L to R: 1) The lighthouse from the north 2) View from the west 3) The St. Paul rusted boiler 4) Elephant seal colonies can sometimes be found on the beach in from 5) The spiral ladder leading up to the 2nd floor 6) The view from the lighthouse looking north 7) The lighthouse while operational. Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard

About twenty three miles down the coast, where the Lost Coast trail ends at Shelter Cove, sits another lighthouse, The Cape Mendocino Lighthouse. If you're confused by this, I'm impressed. Cape Mendocino, the most notorious cape on the west coast, is actually thirty five miles north of Shelter Cove. In 1971, long after the lighthouse had been automated, the rotating light beacon was moved from the tower and placed on a pole further up the hill. Like Punta Gorda, the wooden supporting structures were burned down and pushed into the ocean. The lighthouse remained and would continue to rust over the next three decades as it slowly slid towards the very rocks it had been warning sailors to avoid.

In 1999 the Lighthouse was dismantled piece by piece, moved to a construction yard, completely restored, and then reassembled, in 2002, thirty-five miles south in Shelter Cove.

Top L to R: 1) The Cape Mendocino Lighthouse operational at the cape - courtesy US Coast Guard 2) An aerial view of the operational campus - courtesy US Coast Guard 3) The lighthouse as it sits now at Shelter Cove. The figure on the right is a statue of Mario Machi. 4) Mr. Machi's dedication. It speaks for itself.

The Cape Mendocino Lighthouse Preservation Society lead the initiative to save and restore the lighthouse. It was a fitting and deserved tribute to something with such a rich and engaging history. But beyond the historical significance, lighthouses offered sailors a feeling of hope and connection, a safe haven. Now, in their afterlife, they continue to offer hope and connection. But for those of us on land.