Pfeiffer Beach and Sycamore Canyon Road

On Highway One, there is no signage that identifies Sycamore Canyon Road or indicates that it leads down to Pfeiffer Beach, one of the most iconic locales in all of Big Sur.  After a steep curving descent for a hundred yards well away from the Highway, there is a rock wall with a sign pointing to Pfeiffer Beach, two miles down the road.  Yet, in spite of this attempt at anonymity, Sycamore Canyon Road often has so much traffic that it is literally grid-locked and the parking area at the Beach is often closed because it is full.

Sycamore Canyon Road is memorably lovely in its own right, offering a narrow, twisting, shadowed descent through lush vegetation (redwoods, bay laurel, sycamore, eucalyptus, giant ferns) on a road so narrow that in some places two vehicles cannot pass by one another without the use of turnouts.  Approaching the bottom, the road enters into a valley where one of the original settlements existed in Big Sur–the Pfeiffer Ranch–then opens up to the Beach, with its famous “keyhole rock”.  

Both the road and the beach it leads to are properly described as idyllic, but that is not the experience most visitors have now.  Many visitors now are met at the top of the road, by Highway One, and informed that the beach parking lot is filled so they must wait for cars to exit before they can proceed down to the beach.  In spite of this attempt to control or avoid the chaos, visitors on the way down frequently find themselves stuck in traffic that cannot move one way or another.   Because of the narrow road, these situations take time to sort out.  Then, despite the good intentions of the people at the top of the road directing the traffic down, one can arrive at the parking area to find it “full”.

Beyond the parking area, Pfeiffer Beach is magnificent, with its jutting rock formations, and wide expanse of beach, where, once upon a time, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had their romantic tryst in the Sandpiper.  The magnificence is dulled, however, by the presence of trash and other debris that demonstrate a simple lack of respect for the site among too many visitors.  The residents of Clear Ridge, which perches above Pfeiffer Beach, are always afraid that an illegal campfire will sweep up through Deer Valley and cause great destruction.  While the parking lot rules are strictly enforced, the same cannot be said of other regulations, such as the prohibition of fires.

Various solutions to the problems of Sycamore Canyon Road and Pfeiffer Beach have been proposed, from limiting access by requiring pre-registration to having a shuttle service from Pfeiffer State Park.  While none of these solutions have been settled upon, it is clear that, with the advent of another tourist season, especially post-pandemic, the problems will only grow worse before they are resolved.