BIG SUR, Calif. 鈥� McWay Falls is picture perfect. The waterfall drops
24 metres into sandy McWay Cove along California鈥檚 Big Sur. It鈥檚 a stunning image and geographic feature of Land鈥檚 End on America鈥檚 Left Coast, tucked off Highway 1 in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
The ocean at McWay Falls shifts from aquamarine to cobalt to Caribbean blue.
The spot where McWay Creek tumbles into the Pacific Ocean is one of the most-visited spots in Big Sur.
Big Sur is a wild and natural 150-kilometre stretch from Carmel to San Simeon, where the Santa Lucia Mountains meet the ocean.
It is an appealing place with its own distinctive California flavour 鈥� lovely, wild, lonely and rugged. It is also dramatic, enchanting, overwhelming and sublime.
It is a land of incredible resorts, eye-popping sunsets, redwood groves, cobbled beaches, soaring California condors, Spanish missions, tree-lined hollows, lighthouses, huge elephant seals and migrating grey whales.
Its mood changes with the weather and the time of day.
Fog may blanket the coast at dawn until the sun burns it away. The setting sun creates a colourful palette. Storms add a different mystique.
Big Sur is a place of free spirits and American literary giants.
They include Henry Miller, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lillian Bos Ross, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, Gary Snyder, Hunter S. Thompson, Edward Weston. It was Jeffers who said: 鈥淏ig Sur is the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.鈥�
Big Sur stretches from Carmel on the north to San Simeon in the south. The Spanish called the area El Sur Grande, the Big South.
The curvy, two-lane highway runs north-south between San Francisco and Los Angeles and it sits
150 to 300 metres above the crashing surf.
It hugs the coast and is an enchanting place, one of the world鈥檚 great scenic highways. It gets three million visitors a year and is especially popular with Europeans. The road is surrounded by the 240,026-acre Ventana Wilderness in the canyon-filled Santa Lucia Mountains in Los Padres National Forest.
The highway was not built until 1937. Big Sur did not get electricity until the late 1940s. Telephone party lines survived into the 1970s. Cellphone service is spotty at best. Big Sur is surprisingly wild, with limited accommodations, food and gasoline along 150 kilometres. Long stretches have few signs of civilization. But it also has some of California鈥檚 plushest resorts in the Post Ranch Inn and Ventana Inn and Spa.
One of the best ways to see Big Sur is to visit three state parks 鈥� Andrew Molera, Pfeiffer Big Sur and Julia Pfeiffer Burns.
Andrew Molera State Park offers easy hiking trails that reach the ocean. That鈥檚 rare along this stretch of coast. The 4,766-acre park is largely undeveloped, by design. Primitive camping is available.
The bubbly Big Sur River flows through the park and empties into the ocean at a remote beach that stretches nearly five kilometres. A
31-kilometre stretch of the stream is a designated wild and scenic river.
The park, a one-time dairy farm where Monterey Jack cheese was born, is the largest state park along Big Sur, 37 kilometres south of Carmel. It is a great place for Pacific vistas, driftwood-filled beaches, hikes along windswept ocean bluffs and more than
51 kilometres of trails.
You may even find thousands of monarch butterflies wintering en masse in eucalyptus trees along the Big Sur River.
Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park features 18-metre Pfeiffer Falls, camping and a park lodge on 1,006 acres. The Big Sur River tumbles through the park. It is also a major trailhead and route to the Ventana Wilderness.
The most impressive redwoods are found in the campground. The giant trees can be 100 metres tall, six metres in diameter and more than 2,000 years old.
The parks stretch inland to include the steep, rugged redwood-lined creek canyons, the slopes of oak, the open grasslands and the ridges of chaparral.
Julia Pfeiffer Burns (1868-1928) was an early settler of Big Sur who ran a ranch in McWay Canyon with her husband, John Burns. Her namesake park, 60 kilometres south of Carmel, covers 3,762 acres.
McWay Falls can be viewed from an overlook. It is just a short walk from the parking lot off the highway. The round trip is one kilometre. There are views to the north and south, but no public access to the beach. The spring-fed stream flows year-round over California鈥檚 only beach waterfall.
The falls used to tumble into the ocean. But that changed in 1983-84 with a fire, landslide and highway reconstruction that created the cove. The falls are named after settler-farmer Christopher McWay from New York state.
The park is also home to the seven-kilometre Ewoldsen Trail, one of the premier Big Sur hiking trails. It features huge redwoods, waterfalls in McWay Canyon and ocean vistas. Parts of the trail are still closed after a fire in 2008.
The park entry fee is $6.
Two other popular spots along Big Sur are Pfeiffer Beach (the most popular and accessible beach) and Sand Dollar Beach.
Finding the access road to exotic Pfeiffer Beach is tricky. Sycamore Canyon Road is unmarked. It is just south of the entrance to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Look for mile marker 45.64. You travel for three kilometres along a winding, one-lane road, then take a 10-minute walk to the beach.
Cliffs tower above and an arch-shaped rock sits offshore. It can be windy. It is often on best-beaches lists and appeared in the movie The Sandpiper, which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
Sand Dollar Beach features a protected, crescent-shaped beach.
The much-photographed Bixby Creek Bridge is
213 metres long and 80 metres high on Highway 1.
You will find sand dunes near the Point Sur Lightstation, a state historic park that dates to 1889. It sits
110 metres above the water.
Tours are offered of the station, which is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Go to pointsur.org. The Los Padres National Forest鈥檚 Ventana Wilderness features more than 510 kilometres of hiking trails, some with thermal pools. Try the Big Pines Trail for views of Monterey Bay.
The 59-kilometre Pine Ridge Trail makes a great weekend backpack. The Buckeye and Carrizo trails are also favourites.
The wilderness, established in 1969, covers 240,000 acres. For information, check with the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, 831-423-3191, ventanawild.org.
Los Padres forest includes 2,000 kilometres of trails and 100 wilderness areas that together cover 875,000 acres. The forest was established in 1969 and covers terrain that stretches from 164 metres in elevation to 1,750 metres. You can get information from the Los Padres National Forest, 805-968-6640, fs.usda.gov/lpnf.
The Big Sur Chamber of Commerce can be reached at 831-667-2100, bigsur
california.org. Also California State Parks, 800-777-0369, parks.ca.gov.
You can contact Andrew Molera State Park at 408-667-2315. Pfeiffer Big Sur and Julia Pfeiffer Burns state parks can both be reached at 831-667-2315.
An outfitter, Big Sur Guides and Hiking, offers private and group trips including helicopter tours. Call 831-594-1742 or see
bigsurguides.com.
Monterey has the world-class Monterey Bay Aquarium. Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau is at 877-MONTEREY, seemonterey.com.
Artsy Carmel-by-the-Sea has shops, boutiques, galleries and the famous 17-Mile Drive.
Carmel Chamber of Commerce is at 800-550-4333 or 831-624-2522, or go to carmelcalifornia.com.
