Military Officer - April 2007 - (Page 59) G R E AT G E TA W AY S The beaches along Big Sur are very different from the crowded beaches of southern California. Most are not accessible directly from the highway and require short treks on foot. One of the most popular is Pfeiffer Beach, just north of the Big Sur post office, distinguished by towering cliffs and arching rock formations. A little farther north, the more serene beach at Andrew Molera State Park is accessible via a mile-long path beside the Big Sur River. Just north of Andrew Molera State Park, the precariously situated Point Sur Lighthouse once served as a beacon warning ships of the volcanic promontory on which it sits. The Neptune Pool is just one of the famous features of Hearst Castle. the fort or snorkeling in the beautiful blue-green waters beyond its walls. Rugged western coast: the Big Sur Coast Highway (Route 1) On the West Coast, another Route 1 courses past stunning ocean scenery in central California. The famous curling highway along the Big Sur Coast offers unrivaled vistas of cliffs plunging into the sea and the frothy waves of the Pacific colliding with a landscape little changed since the area was first inhabited by settlers just over a century ago. Although you can cover this 90mile trek from San Simeon to Carmel in a day, there are many weeks’ worth of beauty and history to explore. Big Sur is a land of geographic extremes, with the Santa Lucia Mountains rising ruggedly to the east and the rocky coastline plunging to the sea on the west. Constructed over the course of 18 years in the 1920s and ’30s, the highway is nothing less than an engineering wonder. I begin my journey on a fogshrouded morning in San Simeon with a stop at the famed Hearst Castle. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and architect Julia PHOTO: JOSEPH SOHM/VISIONS OF AMERICA/CORBIS Morgan designed and built the castle over a 30-year period. On a hilltop overlooking the ocean, the compound is an architectural gem of Mediterranean Revival style with 165 rooms. As the morning mist lifts, I open the sunroof and head about 8 miles north to the Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery. If you’re lucky enough to travel this route in winter or early spring, the beaches are smothered with some 8,000 birthing and mating elephant seals. Look closely for glimpses of awkward pups testing their flippers in the Pacific. Farther north, Route 1 winds along the 167,000-acre Ventana Wilderness, characterized by steep mountains and tight valleys, where rivers course from mountain springs, creating a luscious landscape of waterfalls and deep, glistening pools. The wilderness area has more than 230 miles of hiking trails leading into the coastal backcountry, providing up-close access to the signature Santa Lucia fir and the beloved coast redwood, the tallest tree species on earth. With average diameters of 10 to 15 feet and heights reaching up to 240 feet, redwoods are also long-lived trees; many individual trees boast an age of some 2,000 years. RESOURCES Before you plan your trip, check out these resources for more information. ■ Big Sur Chamber of Commerce (831) 667-2100 www.bigsurcalifornia.org Midland Trail Scenic Byway Association (866) ROUTE 60 (768-8360) www.midlandtrail.com Monroe County Tourist Development Council (800) FLA-KEYS (352-5397) www.fla-keys.com ■ ■ Decommissioned in 1972, the lighthouse is open for tours on weekends. Much of the region is still wonderfully wild, but there are pockets of civilization here. One is at the highway’s ending point in Carmel, where the Highlands Inn’s California Market offers ocean-view dining from a heated deck — the perfect place to close my journey and watch the sun settle quietly into the sea. MO APRIL 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 59 http://www.bigsurcalifornia.org http://www.midlandtrail.com http://www.fla-keys.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.