Monterey County Now article: Highway 1 reopens fully in Big Sur, to cheers and honking horns.
It’s been a long time coming (3 years) Considering the severity of Pacific storms lately who knows how long it will last? Road trip-wise I think I actually prefer the Oregon coast, but there’s no denying the lure of driving on the edge of the continent south of Big Sur. It can be an extremely fun drive if you luck out and don’t get stuck behind timid sightseers or an RV.
Just plan on sightseeing because there will always be someone in front of you who is. Oh, and don’t miss out on the novelty of $10-a-gallon gas.
I drove from San Francisco to LA the summer of 2022 not long before it closed. It was a white knuckle drive!
I try to do an annual bicycle trip along there down to SLO - last time was in fall 2022 - looking forward to seeing it again! But yeah, who knows how long it will remain open - hopefully thru the summer season to give the businesses along there a boost!
Why was it closed?
Hwy 1 has a long history of being closed by landslides. The two most recent were Paul’s Slide (January 2023) and the Regent Slide (February 2024)
Oh come on! It’s just a winding two-lane road with lots of blind curves hundreds of feet up a cliff beside the ocean.
I’ve driven it perhaps twice, when I was young. I’ll never see it again because I have unfortunately recently developed a phobia for driving along the edge of steep cliffs. It’s a bummer because so much of the California coast is like this, and I live in California.
We’ll be vacationing in Carmel in a week, and I’m unable to tolerate going any further south than Point Lobos. Sucks.
Seems it would be less scary driving north as you would be on the cliff side rather than the shore side.
Brian
South is much more challenging. When my wife and I drove the Ring Road around Iceland the summer of 2024, we chose to go clockwise for the advantage of being on the land side of the road.
Driving north to south may be scarier/more challenging, but it has one big plus: it’s much easier to pull off and get back on the road at viewpoints.
