Fall camping getaway in Big Sur

On a tip from Amy, Matt and I decided to spend a weekend camping in Big Sur at the newly re-opened Limekiln State Park. My recollection is that this park has been closed for a while due to budget problems and to the Big Sur forest fires that burned through much of the coastline a few years ago. But Amy took a trip down the coast after visiting us this summer, and reported back that everything was open and definitely worth the trip.

So we packed up the car and headed down to our campsite on Friday. We discovered that we had lucked out with one of the best campsites in the park, overlooking a babbling creek and tucked away from most of the other campers. The site also looked out on to a little wooden foot bridge that led to a couple of beautiful trails up to some falls and the old limekiln site. We set up camp and went on a short hike up to the falls before dinner.

Driving down the coast

Our campsite, number 23

The creek below our site, which included a little private "beach" just for us

A short hike to the falls

Limekiln Creek

Evidence of the fires could be seen on many of the tree trunks

Limekiln Falls (and Matt, for scale)

Limekiln SP also extends from the redwood forest down to the ocean, so after dinner, Matt and I took a short walk down to the beach to catch the sunset over the water.  A few other campers had the same idea as we did, however just about everyone left immediately after the sun sank below the horizon.  That left the beach pretty much to ourselves for a great show of cloud color and light that followed.

On Saturday, we drove to Andrew Molera State Park for an 8-mile hike through beautiful coastline.  The hike started out in a grassy area along River Trail, climbed steeply up Hidden Trail to a ridge with nice views of the colorful mountains inland. We followed Ridge trail and ascended gently up a few hundred more feet, stopping for lunch at a well-placed bench under some wind-blown cypress. Our lunch spot looked out over the way we had come, with the mountains inland rolling into the famously blue Big Sur coastline below.  After sandwiches, we took Panorama trail back down the other side of the ridge from where we started, this time following the coast over ocean bluffs. We took a few diversions -- once ducking into an eerily dark patch of primeval forest so dense that the canopy blotted out most of the intense sun, and again taking a quick trip to a deserted and driftwood-packed beach.

Looking South from Hidden Trail (Hwy 1 in the foreground)

Looking East

Hiking along Ridge trail

The view from our lunch spot

Coming down to the bluffs on Panorama Trail

Matt also experimented with a new set of stainless steel camping cookware on this trip. He treated me to several amazing meals thanks to the new pots and pans: fire-grilled veggies with coconut tofu, perfectly-melted campfire pizza, and an amazing new recipe for coconut pancakes with strawberries.

On Sunday morning before Matt woke up, the light through the trees was perfect.  So I hiked up the banks of Limekiln Creek for a few last moments in the woods.  I'm glad I took my tripod, too, because I'd been wanting to play with some long exposure shots. 

On the way back up the coast on Sunday, we stopped at the famous overlook at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park for some pictures.  The color of the water in this area of Big Sur is almost unreal, and the waterfall into the ocean is icing on the cake. All in all, this trip more than made up for our lackluster camping experience at Russian River in August.  We can't wait to do it again!

Even more photos from the trip can be found here.