more than 300 miles of trails and restricted roads to explore on either day hikes or extended backpacking treks. Each part is subdivided into chapters that list trips in geographic order from north to south.
Each trip includes summary information and the hike description itself.
Summary
Summary information for each trip includes:
TITLE The highlighted destination(s) along the route.
LENGTH AND TYPE The overall length of the hike and whether the route is out-and-back, point-to-point, or a loop. Distances to specific waypoints are listed in each hike description.
RATING This book rates each trip according to physical effort and ease of access. Ratings are as follows:
Easy: Typically a short hike on level terrain with less than 500 feet of total elevation gain.
Moderate: Hikes with a consistent medium grade with roughly 500–1000 feet of total elevation gain.
Strenuous: Typically longer hikes with approximately 1000–2000 feet of elevation gain.
Challenging: A very strenuous hike with roughly 2000–3000 feet of total elevation gain over many miles of steep, rugged trails in often remote regions. Wilderness experience and ethics required.
TRAIL CONDITION Many routes within the wilderness areas are ill maintained, suffering from landslides, encroaching brush, and vanishing tread. The five-level rating system described below summarizes the general navigability of the trail. This section also advises whether the trail is good for kids, and whether you’re likely to encounter poison oak.
Well maintained: Typically heavily used and regularly maintained.
Clear: A well-defined trail with no major obstructions.
Passable: The trail is evident with some encroaching brush and/or downed debris. Lightly traveled and not regularly maintained.
Difficult: The trail is faint with waist-high or above brush and/or fallen debris.
Impassable: The trail is unrecognizable with major trail obstructions, including encroaching brush, landslides, and/or much fallen debris.
HIGHLIGHTS The natural feature(s) that distinguish each hike.
TO REACH THE TRAILHEAD Concise directions to the start of the trail. Where necessary, information is provided regarding facilities, water, entrance fees, and parking fees.
TRIP SUMMARY A basic description of the route, including any day hike or extended overnight options. Includes information on potential difficulties/hazards, as well as advice on the best time of year to visit.
Maps
Each trip is shown on a map, which is placed adjacent to the trip itself or adjacent to a nearby trip. Please see the map legend for details about the maps.
Trip Description
Each trip description offers a thorough breakdown of the route, including trail conditions, seasonal considerations, water sources, historical notes, geology, plant and animal life, etc. Directions include all trail and spur junctions, camps, natural landmarks, and other notable features. Camps, junctions, and certain key features are listed in bold type followed by a parenthetical notation of the distance from the trailhead in miles and elevation in feet—for example, Hiding Canyon Camp (5.5 miles, 2500').
In certain instances, trail descriptions may overlap from one trip to the next. In such cases, the reader might be directed to a previous description for the route up to a certain point—for example, “See TRIP 49 Pine Valley for the first 5.3 miles of this route to Pine Valley.”
If a spur leads to a notable feature (e.g., a camp, swimming hole, etc.), the trip description may include a Side Trip that elaborates on that feature. You’ll also find sidebars throughout the text that offer more detail about natural features, historical anecdotes, and the like.
Tectonic activity created the prominent peaks and ridges of the Santa Lucia Range.
CHAPTER two
Natural History
Geology
BIG SUR’S RUGGED LANDSCAPE speaks to a tumultuous past, when ocean and rock collided in a dramatic convergence. It is a geologically youthful region. In just 5 million years, Big Sur has been smashed between colliding tectonic plates, compressed by massive faults, and rammed upward to form the jagged peaks, steep ridges, and deep gorges of the Santa Lucia Range.
While the mountains themselves may be relative toddlers, many of the rocks bear ancient origins, tens of millions of years old. The convoluted topography means that rock types formed under radically different conditions lie confusingly side by side. Ancient mountain ranges, seafloors, stream sediments, and molten rock form a jumbled matrix that continues to baffle geologists.
The story for most of these rocks begins 130 million years ago, amid sediments from an ancient mountain range 1800 miles southeast in present-day Mexico. In that era, North America’s western shoreline lay about where the Sierra Nevada stands today, everything west was submerged beneath the ocean, and the Santa Lucia Range did not exist. In the following millennia, westbound rivers deposited the sediments along the coast, where these layers eventually solidified into sandstone, siltstone, and limestone.
Over subsequent millions of years, a massive oceanic plate slid slowly beneath the continental plate. The increasing depth and pressure melted the sandstone, siltstone, and limestone, which slowly cooled and solidified underground as various types of granite, marble, schist, and gneiss. The cooling process formed large crystals that lend these rocks a salt-and-pepper appearance in the sunlight. Geologists believe that rock types along the Big Sur coast and Santa Lucia Range share traits with granites of the Sierra Nevada, comprising a group called the Salinian block.
The hard, crystalline rocks of the Salinian block comprise many of the prominent high peaks of the range, such as Ventana Double Cone and Pico Blanco, as well as many of the rugged coves, cliffs, and promontories along the Big Sur coastline, particularly at Garrapata, Julia Pfeiffer, and Partington Cove. These durable, erosion-resistant granitic rocks hold up well in the pounding surf, producing little sediment to cloud the waters. Any sediment is coarse-grained and quickly sinks to the bottom, unlike finer sediments that cloud coastal waters elsewhere in California.
These rocks are readily identified when exposed. Limestone and marble outcrops are vivid white with a sugary texture. Granitic rocks in the surf zone appear coarse with reflective faces, while rocks higher on the bluffs weather a rusty orange. Collectively, the Salinian block rocks form the basement layers in the north half of the Santa Lucia Range.
Sandstone cliffs tower above the open grasslands and pine-studded meadows of Ventana Wilderness.
As the denser oceanic plate dove under the lighter continental plate, massive accumulations of sand, mud, and the skeletons of microscopic sea creatures scraped off and slipped into
