There’s a few smallish ones like that in Mendo, but I can’t remember any like that with that kind of rock and trees… are you sure? Got a specific video in mind?
Some of them show the Little River Blowhole but the topography and plants there look different from the photo…
Youtube videos of the “Mendocino blowhole” appear to be of the Little River Blowhole. Here’s some more video footage of the Little River Blowhole, and I’m confident that it’s not the same as what’s pictured in the OP. Here’s the map coordinates of the Little River Blowhole:
Using Google Maps/Earth, one can actually drag the orange Street View tool over the hole to get a panoramic view of it and it doesn’t match.
Here’s another scene from Karate Kid Part III which shows a bit more of the coastal geography. The headland that Daniel-san and Mr Miyagi are training on matches the rear headland in the second picture that the OP provided.
The rock formation below and in front of that orange thing in the 2nd picture has an “interesting” shape. 
Looks more like Mendocino than Monterey area. Mendocino is more rocky, and looks a lot like the Maine coast, so you’ll see it in a lot of movies that are supposed to take place there (like Cujo). But the town itself has/had an older CA feel to it, and it was used for a lot of the scenes in East of Eden (with James Dean), which was supposed to take place around the Monterey/Salinas area. Also, some of the best CA bud comes from Mendocino area (or so I am told).
Found it!
The feature shown in the Karate Kid 3 clip is the Devil’s Basin, right next to Highway 1 on the Mendocino coast, about 3 miles north of Elk, CA (so about 7 miles south of the Little River Blowhole, and 10 miles south of the town of Mendocino).
If one launches Google Maps Street View at (39.1708552,-123.7447207), looking South, one sees the two distinctive jagged rocks on the south edge of the blowhole, with the single jagged rock on the next headland, as shown in The SunDial’s second image and the video clip posted by Walken After Midnight. Exploring the area in Street View, all of the visible features match other parts of the video clip (which refers to the blowhole as the “Devil’s Cauldron”).
I’ve been up and down the Mendocino Coast a few times, and thought that the film clip looked like the area around Elk. A bit of targeted Googling found a 1989 online diary from Elk, whose January 12th entry includes:
Further Googling of “Devil’s Basin” gave the correct coordinates. It is indeed a stunning stretch of coastline.
Google Earth shows the top edge being at 79m/260ft above sea level, so that also matches the height of the Basin.
Yep, that’s definitely it. Nice detective work!
Nice!!!
Great work! Outside of the period diary entry you found, I think you’re the first person on the whole of the internet to match the Devil’s Basin to the Karate Kid movie. The feature seems to be little-known or documented in the internet age. Mr Miyagi chose wisely when deciding on where to hide his bonsai tree!
Yay! Great job!
I looked up Devil’s Basin on the California Coastal Records website – it notes the location was used in KK3, and also says the ranch across the way is(was?) owned by “actor Chris Christoferson”.
If you’re out in CA, and you get a chance to head up to Mendocino, I’d definitely recommend it. It’s a 3 hour drive north of SF, if you go up 101, and you cut through some incredibly beautiful redwood forests. Good wine tasting in the Russian River Valley (a top notch Pinot Noir producing region), and Mendocino itself is a tiny place right on the ocean. IIRC, The Summer of '42 was filmed there, as well, not to mention the opening scene for the show Murder, She Wrote. A very relaxing place, with some nice restaurants and lots of hiking trails and other outdoorsy things to do. The scenic route up Hwy 1 is quite nice, but also a bit longer. That will take you through Elk and then past Devil’s Basin.
Thanks, Antonius Block
I added it to the IMDB filming locations.
This pdf describes the geology well. “Franciscan Complex” – as Stranger surmised, a mélange of igneous rocks (pillow basalts, gabbros, and more), a complex terrane near ongoing offshore subduction (the “Mendocino triple point,” where three plates meet), the sort of stuff you don’t find much of further south along the coast from here.
This is interesting, regarding the Mendocino triple junction (Wikipedia):
“Due to the relative plate motions, the triple junction has been migrating northwards for the past 25–30 million years, and assuming rigid plates, the geometry requires that a void, called slab window, develop southeast of the MTJ. At this point, removal of the subducting Gorda lithosphere from beneath North America causes asthenospheric upwelling.[3] This instigates different tectonic processes, which include surficial uplift, crustal deformation, intense seismic activity, high heat flow, and even the extrusion of volcanic rocks. This activity is centred on the current triple junction position, but evidence for its migration is found in the geology all along the California coast, starting as far south as Los Angeles.”
Bumping the thread to report that I stopped at Devil’s Basin on a roadtrip last week to snap a quick photo. There isn’t any signage pointing it out and just a small spot to pull over–if you didn’t know it was there you’d drive right by.
I suppose it’s a good thing that they don’t publicize the location because it’s a pretty hazardous spot–right on the edge of the road with almost no shoulder and a *really *steep drop off down into the basin. Still, it was cool to check out the place that spurred the discussion here in this thread.
Cool!
Next time the wife and i visit her mother in San Francisco, we’re going to try and take a few days to go north. I’ll try to remember to stop and check it out.
From the Street View it looks like the edge of the road tends to crumble right over the edge. :eek: