Big Sur Country

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In this blog entry we are using a different approach that we hope will integrate the written comments and the pictures better by putting most of the text in the captions for the pictures. We hope you like it.

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Photos

Big Sur, California
Big Sur is a unique coastal section of California located between Cambria in the south to Carmel in the north where the coastal mountains (the Santa Lucia Mountains), with elevations up to 5000 feet, rise directly out of the sea. Although there is some privately-owned land, Big Sur includes 5-6 state parks, two wilderness areas, and the Los Padres National Forest, so it is well protected from development.

The Coastal Road (Highway 1)
The one road through this area, the Coastal road (Highway 1), is awesome and a little bit scary. It is a narrow road with often no shoulders that winds around the sea cliffs overlooking the Pacific. The road is usually situated with several hundred feet of sheer drop into the sea on one side and solid rock on the other side. There are many blind-curves and little room to maneuver. At the same time one is driving through some of the most spectacular seascapes in the world, but the driving is so demanding that looking at the scenery is not an option. Fortunately, there are many “pull-offs” provided along the 75 miles of the road. Around every corner you encounter a new view that is unique and worthy of a photo stop. Two warnings: first, be sure your camera’s battery in fully charged and has lots of room for storing all the pictures you will take; second, plan on making about 20 mph.

More Big Sur Scenery
A minor problem with this area is the absence of cell phone reception (not that we are arguing for ugly cell phone towers on the Santa Lucia peaks!!). Since we have been using a cell phone-based internet connection, it has been difficult to keep up with email and post blog entries, for example. We have found that transporting the computer and cell phones by truck to one of the higher ridges overlooking the Pacific (about 10 minutes from our campground) allows us to get an adequate connection. The first day we did this was rewarded by a fly-by of two adult California condors. There is a release site for condors in this area. What a treat—we almost drove off Highway 1 into the Pacific!

More Big Sur Scenery
In addition to cell phone, TV, and radio reception is also poor. The only reliable radio program we could get is the BBC. So, we felt rather cut-off from the world, but then we got the word about our illustrious governor back in NY and we knew that nothing had changed!

Big Sur Camping and Cabins
We spent five nights at Big Sur Camping & Cabins, a small RV park situated in a redwood grove. The camping sites, roads, and facilities of the park are positioned in the space available between the trees. The north boundary of the park is the Big Sur River.

Camping in a Redwood Grove
This image shows how tight the fit was in the space that was available. We felt as one with the redwood grove.

The Big Sur River
Our campsite looked out on the river and Jon was ecstatic to discover that dippers were common there. Although they are supposed to be rarely seen in this area of California, we regularly saw a pair foraging in the river right next to our trailer. Dippers are songbirds, but unusually, they find their food underwater in fast-flowing mountain streams by swimming and walking on the stream-bottom searching for aquatic insects. Worldwide there are only five species of dippers, each species restricted to one of the Earth’s major mountainous areas. Our dipper is only found in the western mountains. Other notable birds with whom we shared the campground included winter wren, “Oregon” juncos, Stellar jays, chestnut-backed chickadees, Townsend’s warbler, varied thrush (heard but not seen), and acorn woodpeckers. Gobbling turkeys woke Moxie up early each morning.

De Angulo trail
There are many great hiking trails in the Big Sur region and we explored a new one each day. Starting at sea level and climbing 2500 vertical feet is a pretty good workout and the scenery in this part of the world can’t be beat!

Bixby Bridge
One hike we took followed the original coastal highway, a gravelly, narrow track that followed a more interior path on its way south. When the present coastal highway was built, a major achievement was the construction of the Bixby bridge in 1935. This allowed the highway to cross the entrance to Bixby Creek and Canyon and proceed up the more scenic, coastal route.

Cyprus Grove at Peiffer Beach
The isolated beach located here is at the bottom of a winding side-road off of highway 1. It allows dogs, which Moxie appreciated. Notable birds included a large covey of California quail and band-tailed pigeons.

Pfeiffer Beach
The scene seems to be constantly changing based on the tide and sea conditions. For example, at low tide this island is accessible from shore. Everything seems to be in flux.

McWay Falls
Julia Peiffer-Burns, one of the prettier state parks in the region, is where McWay Falls is located. At high tide, water from this falls cascades directly into the Pacific.

Trail in Julia Pfeiffer-Burns State Park
Who lives here? At least some who did were inspired by the arts. Our campground was near the Henry Miller Library, celebrating the many writers and artists that have occupied the Big Sur. Other famous writers include Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, and Watts that have lived there and were inspired by the amazing beauty. Poetry was even an important part of the bulletin board at the campground.

Trail in the Ventana Wilderness
On the surface, there is little sign of human dwelling in Big Sur, except in a few places. Much of the land is the Ventana Wilderness National Forest or occupied by state parks. In places like the town of Big Sur, there are some hotels, restaurants, campgrounds and a few stores. However, they are carefully scaled down to be as unobtrusive as possible to the viewscape. It was only because we kept hiking on routes that are actually old roads that we realized that people actually live there, at least part of the year. On Route 1, the main road, we could see groups of mailboxes at the tops of the hill and maybe a driveway, but could see no signs of houses. And the hillsides looked more like cliffs so it was hard to imagine buildings. On the few back roads, some of which were so rough that we would hesitate to take our truck on them, there were houses, some very primitive, some quite fancy.

Burned Redwood Stump
One of the things that surprised us was that in Redwoods, every tree had some burn scars on the lower part of the trunk. Some trunks were blackened to 20 or 30 feet but the trees were fine above. Since many of the trees were hundreds of years old, the fires may have occurred at any time after they were tall enough that the branches and leaves escaped harm. This photograph is of a stump that was totally burned but it is unknown if the fire killed it, it was dead before the fire, or if the tree died from something else later. The stump is now the home for a good crop of moss.

Redwood Grove in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park
The oldest tree in Pfeiffer State Park, near to our campground, is 1100 years old. Most of the redwoods in the Big Sur are not that old but many are hundreds of years old. We not only camped in a beautiful grove along a wonderful stream, but we walked miles of trails in the area. Some passed through redwood habitat near streams, then passing into chaparral then back into trees. Being in the stands of trees felt like walking through nature’s own cathedral with the spires reaching up high into the heavens. It was truly a spiritual experience. Singing birds and blooming flowers contributed greatly. When the trails passed into the scrub of the chaparral, the world opened up with vistas of surrounding hills and the ever-present Pacific.

Elephant Seal Calves
The elephant seal rookery just north of San Simeon was very impressive, even at a time of the year when mostly the weaned young and a few females remained on the beaches.

Mature Female Elephant Seal
When we visited the rookery, all the bulls and most of the females had departed leaving the pups to fend for themselves.

Unidentified Butterfly
We end this blog entry with a small sample of pictures showing some of the coincidental flora and fauna we encountered.