Big Sur, Pfeiffer Bridge, and their impact on California road trips (current as of October, 2017)
Heya,
So almost every post here that deals with CA runs in to the Big Sur problem as this is (deservedly) one of the premier road trip routes for anything involving the CA coast. Last winter CA got a crazy amount of rain (for CA), and early in the season Pfeiffer Bridge (an vital and unavoidable portion of the two lane road) was damaged beyond repair. This effectively eliminated the ability to enter Big Sur from the north. Then later in the season a truly massive (quarter mile) section of the road was wiped out by millions of tons of rock slide.
While the rock slide remains, with no firm ETA for reopen, supposedly the bridge on the north side will reopen on October 13. This gives you some choices:
1) You can enter Big Sur from the North, see the iconic drive, and turn around and leave by the North. Total drive time would be around 3 to 4 hours, but you'll want to take longer. If you're just stopping at pullouts and maybe visiting one beach I'd say budget 6-7 hours, but depending on how much you want to get out of your car this could easily be as long as you want. Once you've returned from Big Sur you can head east to 101 from Carmel/Monterrey area and rejoin the CA coastline somewhere around San Louis Obispo.
2) Skip Big Sur entirely. This is sad. But given your time constraints, it may be worth considering. Heading South from San Francisco you can still see the San Mateo county coastline, which is nice, then when you reach Santa Cruz you have two choices. Either A) Continue down to Monterrey as normal, and maybe do the 17 mile drive. The 17 mile drive is Big Sur's beautiful but less impressive golf loving rich sister. Then continue as above. or B) From Moss Landing/Castroville Area take the 183 to the 101 and down to the SLO area as above.
Hopefully the above info is useful to folks when the inevitable question of "why won't google let me go down the 1 through big sur? What do I do now?" arises. I'm happy to make local recommendations about stuff to do/see in the area as well; you don't want to miss out on a visit to the Giant Artichoke. :)
0 Response to "Big Sur, Pfeiffer Bridge, and their impact on California road trips (current as of October, 2017)"
Post a Comment