A large swath of what had long been private land on Northern California’s Lost Coast is now slated for public access.

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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.

In the BLM deal, the property, appraised at $56 million, was purchased with $44 million in federal and state grants. Stretching across 8 miles of ocean frontage, it was assembled from multiple land purchases by Save the Redwoods League dating back to 2008, said Sam Hodder, president of the league.

The 2021 purchase closed by Save the Redwoods 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.