Steel Pulse played Redway on a Tuesday night. A marathon is set to fill the Avenue of the Giants on a Sunday. Garberville's Halloween festival is set for a Friday. The Lost Coast has its own autumn schedule at the end of a long road west. Each event looks like a separate item on a community calendar. Taken together, they are a month organized by geography, with a single stretch of pavement doing most of the organizing.
Of everything on the October list, only one item changes how you get around. That is the race.
Tuesday, October 6: Steel Pulse at a Hall That Was Rebuilt After a Fire
The Mateel Community Center in Redway presented Steel Pulse on its Reggae Against Racism World Tour 2026. It was a Tuesday show, with a 7 PM start at 59 Rusk Lane.
The building has an unusual origin for a concert hall. In 1978, a group of young people bought the old Firemen's Hall in Garberville as a place for meetings and dances. An arsonist burned it down in 1983. The community raised money to rebuild in Redway, and the new hall opened in 1988. One of the fundraisers created for that campaign was Reggae On The River, which the center's own history says still helps cover its annual operating costs. The hall holds up to 800 people, and it was built with fine woodwork and passive solar design.
A reggae act on that stage in October sits close to the building's own history.
Only this one concert turned up in the 2026-2027 listings at the time of writing. The Mateel's own site is the place to confirm anything else on its calendar.
Sunday, October 11: The Avenue of the Giants Closes for the Day
The Humboldt Redwoods Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K runs on Sunday, October 11, 2026. The race starts and finishes at the Dyerville Bridge. The half marathon follows the second half of the Avenue of the Giants marathon course, and all courses are USATF certified. The full marathon is a Boston qualifier.
For anyone who drives that corridor, the details that matter are these:
| Saturday, Oct 10 | Sunday, Oct 11 | |
|---|---|---|
| Honeydew, South Fork Eel and Rockefeller Forest exits | Open | Not used for race-day traffic |
| Avenue of the Giants and Bull Creek Road | No closure listed | Closed 7:30am to 2:00pm |
| North/south race traffic | No restriction listed | Uses the Highway 101 exits about 5 miles north of the start/finish |
| Packet pickup at the staging area | Noon to 3:30pm | From 7:15am |
Two other details from the race organizers help explain the closure window. The marathon has a six-hour time limit. Runners who have not passed the halfway point by 11:25am are directed to finish the half marathon instead.
Parking is on the river bar a quarter mile from the start, and the organizers warn that traffic can back up close to start time. Sunday packet pickup at the staging area begins at 7:15am, and the road closure begins at 7:30am.
The course runs beneath old-growth redwoods that reach about 300 feet. The organizers say the canopy keeps temperatures cool all morning and can also block GPS signals on running watches. Spectators are welcome, and the course is lined with the same trees people drive under the rest of the year.
One caution on sources. A separate race, the Avenue of the Giants Marathon, runs in May, and its published logistics differ slightly from the October race, including its road closure hours. The October figures above come from the Humboldt Redwoods Marathon's own site. Confirm them at redwoodsmarathon.com before Sunday, because closure hours are the kind of detail that gets adjusted.
Friday, October 30: A Halloween Festival That Falls a Day Early
The Southern Humboldt Chamber of Commerce is promoting the 39th Annual Halloween Festival and Trunk-or-Treat on the Garberville Town Square for Friday, October 30, 2026. The chamber's homepage says sponsorship opportunities were still open.
That date is the night before Halloween. October 31 falls on a Saturday this year, so the festival does not share a night with trick-or-treating itself. The previous two editions were held on October 31.
The format in recent years gives a sense of what to expect, though the 2026 program has not been published. The 38th edition ran from 4 to 6pm and gathered under the town clock on the square. It included a costume contest with cash prizes, a dance contest with live music from the Irie Rockerz, a flash mob and a trunk-or-treat. The 37th edition ran from 3 to 5:30pm. Trunk-or-treat participants there were asked to arrive early to set up, which is useful to know if you plan to decorate a car.
Check garberville.org for the 2026 hours and lineup before you plan around them. The prize amounts published on the chamber's 2024 event page are old, so they are left out here.
The Cove Runs Its Own Schedule, 45 Minutes West
Shelter Cove is a different trip from anything on the Highway 101 corridor. The road there leaves just north of the grocery store in Redway, and the drive from Garberville takes about 45 minutes.
The Cove has its own October tradition, the Lost Coast Festival of Spirits. According to Kym Kemp's report, the 2025 edition ran from October 24 through November 1. It included a Covetober fundraiser at the Community Clubhouse for local schools and a Spooky Trail Walk that turned the SCARF Nature Trail into a haunted hike. It also had a Mi Mochima outdoor movie night and a Trunk or Treat in the Mal Coombs Park parking lot, hosted by Joe Lopes and the Lighthouse Society. A KMUD report says the Lost Coast Tourism Association presented it, with partners including Cove Connect, SCARF, Mi Mochima, Riptide Dojo, Gyppo Ale Mill and Lost Coast Adventure Tours.
The 2026 dates and lineup were not available when this was written. The Visit Lost Coast events page is where they will be posted.
One name on that partner list deserves a note. Gyppo Ale Mill sits at 1661 Upper Pacific Drive on the ninth hole of the Shelter Cove Golf Links. Its beer garden looks toward the public airstrip, with a fire pit and live music. The taproom serves clam chowder all day and starts its dinner menu at 5pm, according to its own description. When a festival at the Cove needs a partner with a kitchen and a patio, a brewery on the golf course covers both.
For more on how the region's major events fit together across the year, the earlier look at Southern Humboldt's August festival weekends covers the summer side of the same calendar.
Coldwell Banker Cutten Realty has agents who know the stretch from Redway and Garberville to Shelter Cove and the Avenue of the Giants. If you have questions about Southern Humboldt, from the road out to the Cove to what each community around 101 is like, Contact Us Today.
