Finding America

Day 39

We rolled out of the house at 9:30 today picked up a coffee at the Carmel bakery and café then headed south on Hwy 1 through Big Sur. Having blasted through this area with blinders on we wanted to come back and really take a chance to savor each overlook and bend in the road.

We made a bee line for the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park about 40 south of Pebble Beach. We took a short trail beneath Hwy 1 through a huge culvert tunnel to a beach overlook and a waterfall. We are still continually amazed at the vastness of the Pacific. Since we only see the ocean from about 10 feet above sea level in Florida seeing it from the cliffside really give you a true perspective of the Earth vast oceans.

We continued on from the beach back through the tunnel and onto Ewoldsen trailhead. The trail wound up through beautiful old growth sequoia trees and along a meandering stream. The forest felt old we felt very small among its ancient denizens. This was our first hike in anything resembling what I would imagine the Pacific Northwest to look like and the feeling of peace and permanence radiated throughout. We hiked up to the rim for a stunning view of the Pacific. The air was crisp here and the breeze was a welcomed reward for our efforts.

After completing the hike we drove back up Hwy 1 a few miles to have lunch at Café Keva. This open air café sits atop cliffside on the meager amount of land west of the highway. We ordered some lunch and enjoyed the beautiful view and the impeccable weather. We lucked into a crystal clear day and the views from this terrace restaurant were breathtaking. We did a little reading while we waited and then it was time to chow down. Lunch served to refuel us and without further adieu we were off for our next adventure.

Shortly after the Big Sur post office there is an unmarked road, I think it’s Sycamore Canyon road on Google maps. Anyhow we took the road down to Pfeiffer Beach about 2 miles form Hwy 1 on a single track of asphalt. The beach was a little hidden jem but the incessant gail force winds had everyone huddled on the leeward side of the cliffs and boulders so as to not be blown away or sand burned by the grains coursing through the air. Check out the video and pics.

Just past the beach road is the entrance to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Just before it however is a similarly named federal park. We unfortunately paid to go in the first park only to find the trail we wanted to take was not there and that we infact had the wrong park. Luckily the pass we bought at the Julia Pfeiffer park covered our admittance to the correct park.

We took the Pfeiffer falls trail through another amazing forested area with massive sequoia trees. One had fallen in recent years and they had denoted along it’s many growth lines the dates of event in human history reaching back to the time of Marco Polo and the signing of the Magan Carta. Now that is an old tree.

The waterfall, or really two distinct waterfalls was nice. Nothing spectacular but worth the short .2 mile hike to see. From there we took the Valley View trail to a really killer view of the valley through witch Hwy 1 carves a path. This is massive topography and the verdant hills looked like a placid blanket of green until you picked out a single tree across the valley and could see it getting buffeted by the wind. The wind had certainly picked up since we left lunch and up here on the ridge it was really gusting. We spent a few minutes lunging on the bench the park services had provided up top and then we made our decent.

As we approached Pebble Beach on the way home we made our final stop of the day at Point Lobos State Reserve. Many of you will recognize the word lobos as being the Spanish word for wolf. While the area doesn’t have any wolf the names was originally applied by the Spanish explorers to the sea lions barking on the shorts of this rocky promontory. They called them wolfs of the sea.

We took two loop hikes here, one through an amazing old growth forest of Monterey Cypress Trees and one out to Sea Lion point. The wind was almost unbearable at this point in the day and but we pressed on not willing to pass up even a minute of adventure. Both hikes provided unique vistas and animal spottings. Our favorite was watching 4 sea otters frolicking in the help beds together. I could have watched them for hours if it had not been so gusty, it made holding the binoculars a real challenge.

Exhausted from our many hikes we drove by a super market on the way home and picked up some sandwiches for dinner. So that we wouldn’t have to get gussied up for any of the nice restaurants around Carmel and could just enjoy unwinding by the fire, watching some tv and then crashing into bed.

What a day, what a day!!!