View From Above
Camping on the Big Sur Coastline
I found a little slot of time after returning from visiting family up north for Christmas and before our New Year's Eve plans to break south on a little adventure to a spot I've been wanting to explore further. So I packed up some camping gear and tossed Sydney in the back of the Land Cruiser and headed south of Big Sur.
I first stumbled on into this area in the Los Padres National Forest on our return from a roadtrip my wife and I too through Arizona. On our way back we decided to hit the coastline to Pacifica, but first found ourselves staying in a dispersed camping area just south of Big Sur. I knew there were better spots to stay, so I did some digging and found myself here. Look at that view!
3000 ft above
I arrived around 4pm, just in time to unload a bit an wind down from the drive. I set out my solar panels to charge and kicked back to watch the sunset.
Once the sunset, almost immediately, the chilling wind kicked in. I tossed on another layer, grabbed some gloves, and pulled out the camera to take some night photos with my sony A7RII. The stars were incredible. Much like what I'm used to up north by Lassen Park. Not much light pollution and a full 360 degrees of stars. That's the beauty of being so high up on a ridge. No trees to obstruct the view.
After a few shots, I decided to call it quits. My fingers were frozen. I quickly made a few hot dogs, took down a few Mirror Pond Ales then hit the sack. It was a cold night. I woke up to all ice on all my cases I left outside.
Quickly, I packed up everything and headed home. It's my tradition when I drive through Big Sur to take the old HWY 1 route around the Bixby Bridge. It's a bit longer but it's a fun trek down an easy dirt road through some redwoods and up into the mountains.
Once I hit the Bixby Bridge that was it. A straight shot home along the coast to Pacifica.
Photo. Video. Adventure. Let's go outside.