Chapter 7: Mudslides in Big Sur
Carmel River State Beach, Carmel
September 8
My aim was to make it to Bixby Bridge, about 15 miles. The day was grey and uninviting as ever. I started wearing my sandals, not wanting to embrace my worn and dirtied shoes yet, after our rest day of freedom. However, by mile three I was experiencing a sharp twinge in my right foot. I thought it might go away if I just walked through it for a while. It didn’t.
Another half mile and the pain was lancing all the way up to my knee, then into my quad. I told Tayler we’d have to stop for a moment. It was the only time on the whole trip — after the first week — that I truly wondered if I would have to stop the walk, the pain was so sharp. To my great relief, after changing back to shoes the pain receded and eventually went away. Lesson of the day: sandals are great, but not on asphalt.
We walked on, away from the ocean-front mansions of Carmel, toward the increasingly foreboding Big Sur coast. It wasn’t an easy day. The hills rolled on, and the highway shoulders were often narrow. I had hoped that due to the mudslides on highway 1 limiting car access to Big Sur that it would be quieter than usual. Sadly for us, this seemed to have little effect, and there was a quite a bit of traffic.
We eventually arrived at Bixby Bridge. I had hoped that we’d have a sunset to light up the coastal bluffs with the vibrant oranges and blues I’d seen there once before, but it wasn’t to be. Instead the sky remained dark and grey, a pallor of heaviness which you saw with your eyes and felt in your soul. We’d planned to photograph the bridge during sunset, and then find a spot back in the hills somewhere to sleep. But as it became apparent that no sunset would be appearing, we took a few photographs and then began to try and locate an out-of-the-way place to set our tents. The dirt road I’d initially hoped would lead us to some cutout or hidden patch of trees proved far too traveled to risk camping on. On one side was a steep wall of dirt, and the other side dropped away into Bixby ravine hundreds of feet below. Taylor and I considered trying to make our way down several hundred feet to the canyon through which flowed Bixby Creek, but eventually gave the idea up, due to every possible way down looking risky at best, and dangerous at worst. Plus, the idea of such a brutal ascent to return to the road the next morning was not appealing. We sat around on rocks for a while, eating trail mix in a dispirited fashion and not coming up with any ideas. We were only distracted from our gloom by tourists with selfie sticks asking us to take their photo, and an old man with a drone loudly instructing anyone who would listen on the finer points of drone piloting. It was getting darker and we were getting nowhere, so I ventured across the bridge to explore the other side. I found a field full of tall grass, accessible possibly by scrambling down a ditch into a blackberry bramble, through some barbed wire and then through the poison oak infested heather on the other side. The downsides to this option were many and varied, especially considering it didn’t even give us much cover from being seen from the road anyway.
A tiny pullout right off the highway, hidden from sight of southbound traffic by a rambling wild hedge, but quite exposed to northbound traffic, seemed to me to be our best option. It wasn’t by any means a great option, but at this point it was topping the list. Still, it was flat, and after dark I reasoned that there wouldn’t be much traffic returning from a road that didn’t even go through to anywhere. One slight obstacle was that the pull out was currently occupied by a Honda, but I figured that they’d have to leave before too long, because even in beautiful locations, there isn’t a whole lot to do when it’s so dark that you can’t see your hand in front of your face.
I walked back across the bridge and told Taylor what I’d found. He agreed that it wasn’t ideal. However, we weren’t exactly spoiled for choice, so it would have to do. We trekked back across the bridge, extra careful now that it was nearly dark and we were barely visible. We reached the pullout and after an inspection of the field, fence, poison oak, raspberry bushes and ditch, Taylor concurred with my rejection of that option. Making such decisions is sometimes an echo of an old adage expressed by Sherlock Holmes: when you’ve rejected the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. In our case, after rejecting the highly dubious, what remains, however initially ridiculous, becomes the campsite. In this case that meant setting up tents on a patch of dirt about 7 yards from highway 1.
It began to sprinkle, or the air just got so damp that it felt like it was raining, so we hurriedly set up our tents and got our gear inside. It’s an amazing thing, the comfort that being in your tent becomes, when you have no other home for so long. The micrometer of fabric separating you from the outside is physically minimal, and offers very little protection from wild animals, wild humans, wayward vehicles, and a plethora of other forces that might do you harm, but the psychological protection can be immense. We settled down for the night, flinching as every car came around the corner, spotlighting us with their headlights. I hoped that as it got later traffic would subside. It did not. For whatever reason, even though it was now well after dark, the flow of northbound traffic increased as it got later. We endured a trying night. Cars would race by us just a few dozen feet from our heads, headlights would totally illuminate our tents, and us in them, and several times we jerked out of our uneasy half-sleep, sure that the police were bearing down on us with searchlights, such was the intensity and proximity of the headlights. It was not an entirely sleepless night, but it was close.
We awoke the next morning and packed up directly. Breakfast, as it did so many mornings, would have to wait until we were in a new location. Eating breakfast where we awoke was a luxury we were seldom afforded. Too much risk of looking like vagrants and attracting attention.
That night we camped at an actual campsite — we even paid for it — just before the road closure at the first landslide. The next day we used a crowded trail to climb out of the campsite and past the road closure. After getting back to highway one above the slide we stopped at a tiny little store for coconut water. The day was hot and we were hoping to reach McWay Falls, though a local had informed us in a very strong manner that the environmental campsites above the falls were closed. We thanked him for the info, while privately aware that we didn’t have a lot of other options, given that the next campsite was over nine miles past McWay, and there was no way we would be reaching it today. It was very hot, and the miles, though downhill most of the way, were not easy.
In late afternoon we arrived at the falls and spent the evening basking in the magnificence of the coastal idyll. I’ve seldom been any place that evoke such a feeling of perfection. But it’s often passed by. If you are driving south on Highway 1 and know where to stop, you can park alongside the road and make your way down a short dirt path to a wooden boardwalk. The boardwalk will take you back north, the highway some ways to your right, shielded by the rising hillside and thick trees. To your left the land drops steeply away, finally meeting the ocean as an untouched cove surrounded by rocky bluffs enclosing a pristine beach. On the south side of this cove a delicate waterfall splashes down on the sand, a few feet from the aquamarine Pacific. On the north side of the cove pink Resurrection Lilies are full bloom, touched by intermittent mists, giving the whole scene an air of ethereality.
As the day came to a close I went over to explore the supposedly closed campsites above the falls. They were technically closed, having a small cord stretched across a portion of the trail, but to vagabonds such as Taylor and I such things are negotiable. We set up camp after dark and prayed that no rangers would come checking.
Around 5 in the morning we were woken by a flash of light. My first thought was that we’d been discovered by a ranger, but as I tensed awake in my tent, the night resumed its normal reservations of darkness and silence. I tried to go back to sleep only to be roused once again by distant crashing. After a moment the situation became apparent: a thunderstorm was approaching the coast. We gave up on sleep and packed our tents. Then Taylor noticed a warm glow rising above the mountains. It stuck us as odd, and as it grew it brightness and intensity we realized with a sinking sensation that the glow corresponded exactly with the glow of fire through smoke or haze. This was alarming. To begin with, we weren’t supposed to be where we were, also, the only way out of Big Sur was via a winding, sixty mile mountain road. We assumed that the fire had just started due to the lightning and lack of rain. We had observed on the previous day that the whole Big Sur coastline was a tinderbox waiting for a spark. Seemingly, the spark had landed. We were not feeling confident about our safety, and we rushed. Several moments later as we were strapping our tents to our bags it began to truly brighten, and the glow from the fire dissipated. We then realized our error: the dawning sun had lit up the rising mist from the east, causing an illusion of smoke and fire. Suddenly the day became much more cheerful, and we started with much higher spirits even than we would have if there had been no scare. Strange how that happens. We walked to Kirk Creek campground that day, pursued down the empty roads of Big Sur by swarms of flies that had hatched that morning after being washed down the mountain the previous night, according to locals. We arrived in the afternoon and set up camp, eager to get in our tents an away from the flies.
We were enjoying the respite when a tall, lanky lad of about twenty years of age approached our camp. He sat down and began asking about our plans for negotiating the upcoming slide. We learned that he was british, his name was Ollie, and this was his third major cycle tour. After a few moments he decided to join us the following day when we planned to sneak across the slide.
I should say something here about the slide which we were talking about. The Mud Creek mudslide in Big sure was the biggest slide in that area for something like fifty years. The only way out of Big Sur at that point was via a winding, sixty mile mountain road to highway 101, and then another forty miles around to get back to the coast. Taylor and I had neither the time nor the supplies to make such a detour, so we chose to try and sneak across the slide at night.
The next day we walked from our campground at Kirk Creek to a tiny little restaurant and store called the The Whale Watchers Cafe, it was right next to the closure of highway 1. Sitting in the cafe eating the cheapest thing on the menu, we could see the guard on the road.
It felt like we were in a ghost town. The clouds were settled low and damp and everything was hushed. As it grew dark and the guard at the fence left his post, we made our way past the warning signs and started in towards the slide. We had no idea if the slide was a few miles or a few hundred yards: we only knew that the road was closed for eight miles.
The potential of eight miles of mud, in the dark, was not an encouraging prospect, but we pressed on. As we walked the first several hundred yards past the road closure, our spirits began to lift somewhat. The road was even and clear, the air was pleasant and we had seen not even a streak of dirt. After a mile or so, it began to get really properly dark. Then we hit the first smudges of dirt, and very quickly after, the road became flooded with damp soil. As if traversing what was technically still an active mudslide in the dark wasn’t enough to make us nervous, it began to feel suspiciously like rain was on the way. My doubts and worries about if this was truly the best option or if I was taking too big of a risk with all of our lives, began to seriously gnaw at me. Regardless, we walked on.
We cautiously made our way through winding tread-marks made by the tractors clearing the slide by day, trying to to pick the right track that would lead us the right direction. The downgrade become exceedingly steep and slippery, and we navigated primarily on instinct, it being truly dark. Near the bottom of a particularly steep slope which ended in a curve to the left, I heard gravel slide and then a thud and a shout. Behind me, Taylor was down on the ground in considerable pain; his ankle sprained.
This was one of my most uncertain moments of the trip. We were on an active mudslide, in the dark, with it threatening to rain, and Taylor rolling in agony on the ground, and we had no idea how much farther the slide would continue. I knew Taylor’s willpower would force him on, but I didn’t know if I should let us continue, as we still had no idea if we were past the worst of it or if it would rain presently. Navigating these dark, slippery slopes with a fifty pound pack was hard enough with both working ankles. Doing it on only one seemed mad. Doing it on only one for another seven miles seemed insane.
But Taylor’s mental toughness is not like most. He was determined to press on. I had determined in my own mind that at the top of the next incline I would know whether to turn back. If the next slope dropped at the same gradient as the last, we were done. We tenuously agreed to reevaluate atop the next slope. At the top of the incline it flattened out, and we carried on. Perhaps a quarter mile after that the dirt abruptly stopped all together. And then Taylor put in one of the gutsiest efforts I’ve ever seen: six more miles of walking on a freshly sprained ankle , up and down Big Sur in the middle of the night, with humidity at near 100 percent. We were soaked with sweat from the exertion, but we’d often round a bend and feel a significant drop in temperature thoroughly chill us. I don’t know why the variance was so severe, but it was.
We finally made it out of the other side of the closed area, and found a patch of grass on the side of the road. A few months previous, this would have seemed the creepiest place imaginable: complete with sketchy old run-down shack and single, oddly-tinged light casting unfortunate shadows everywhere. To us, it was perfect, and we were delighted. Both flat and grass. We wouldn’t have to camp in gravel on the highway shoulder after all.
We slept. And the next day got up feeling glad to be out of the mud and nervousness of the slide. But it had taken its toll on us. That next day was one of the most brutal days I can recall. By the time we reached the small outcropping on which we were sitting when I took the photograph, our feet were swollen and every step lanced our legs with pain. For Taylor, suffering through the entire day with a severely sprained ankle had put him in a state of exhaustion that is rarely reached. In this moment we both felt nearly as weary and worn down as we ever have been. The character Taylor showed that day, walking twenty miles in twenty-four hours on a badly sprained ankle, I will not soon forget.