Category - Big Sur
Think Big Sur Is Thrilling From the Highway? Try Paddling It
It was raining so hard, we couldn’t see beyond the shoreline. We knew the surf was big. We could hear it.However, the pelting rain and southeast winds prevented us from determining the true swell conditions while launching kayaks and standup paddleboards off California’s rugged Big Sur coast.
Winding for approximately 90 cliff-lined miles up California’s Central Coast, and shortlisted among the world’s most magnificent stretches of shore, Big Sur attracts millions of visitors along the Pacific Coast Highway—when the road is open. When it’s not, a regular occurrence owing to highway damage and lengthy repairs, you’re out of luck. Unless you try a far dicier but even more exhilarating route.
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We were somewhere just south of Andrew Molera State Beach—me in my kayak, and former U.S. National Rowing Team members Patrick O’hea and Will Miller on standup paddleboards—when the tide began to surge. There wasn’t much depth to the beach, and we were quickly running out of real estate.
“It’s loud out there,” said O’hea, as we stared blindly into the early winter tempest. “I guess we’ll have to go to know.”

Chuck Graham
One Very Rough Start
In the middle of a four-day paddling trip, we launched off that nameless beach. The sideways rain, low-hanging fog, and storm clouds created a gray, horizonless expanse within the tumult. We were winging it. The small pocket beach didn’t have a lot of depth. The tidal surge swept up onto the rocks, reverberating back toward our right flanks, so we had waves to contend with from three directions. Most waves pounded in front of us, but the bigger ones produced steep foam balls that gathered momentum, careening off eroding bluffs toward our blindside.
I helped O’hea launch first, and then Miller. They launched without a hitch, but now it was my turn. They paddled through the heaving shore break almost flawlessly. I wasn’t so lucky and mistimed my launch. After jumping into my kayak, I punched through the first wave, but the second wave was bigger and already cresting. Before I knew it, I was surfing backwards on a six-foot wave, as water receded off the gritty shoreline. When my stern pounded into the sand, I instinctively curled up into a ball, while being catapulted. Bracing for impact, I felt the back of my head graze the shifting shoreline as a total yard-sale ensued.

Chuck Graham
Miraculously, I came out of it unscathed, minus all the gritty, wet sand that found its way between me and my wetsuit. Still, there was no damage to me, my kayak, or paddle. While I scrambled for my dry bag holding camera gear, spare paddle, and a water bottle, I was already strategizing my next attempt.
Struggling to re-launch, I lost sight of Miller and O’hea, the weather not allowing it. I told them to try to keep within the mouth of the cove. At that point, I just had to get off that beach. Punching through three large waves, I finally managed it—and then, somewhat miraculously, I spied Miller and O’hea standing tall in the stiff southeast winds.
They were roughly 50 yards off the wave-battered shoreline, smiling in the pelting rain beyond the breaking surf.
“Well,” said Miller, “now we know.”

Doug Meek/Getty Images
Big Sur Beginnings
Since Pacific Coast Highway 1 (PCH) opened in 1937, the 90-mile stretch of winding Big Sur coastline has closed due to extensive landslides 55 times. In 2022-23 alone, there were numerous closures due to back-to-back wet winters involving multiple landslides.
Since January 2023, it’s been impossible to drive end to end, north from the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse and South of Carmel. Of the 656 miles of California coastline, the Big Sur Coast is some of its most breathtaking. When the road is passable, Big Sur receives more visitation than Yosemite National Park.

Brian van der Brug/Getty Images
Each time I’ve driven the weaving route in the past, my curiosity ran wild by the extremes of living remotely in coastal California. Due to its daunting coastal topography and strict land use regulations, the Big Sur Coast is sparsely populated. Most homes are concealed by sheer cliffs, redwoods, and coastal chaparral, all tucked away in the Santa Lucia Mountains. Roughly 2,000 people eke out some kind of life above its weather-beaten shores.
It would take a paddling trip to soothe my curiosity, hopefully revealing how remote and Mordor-like those massively sheer cliffs truly are. There were plenty of precarious examples of just how far people were willing to go to escape any sort of megalopolis. A couple of dilapidated dwellings appeared as if they required BASE jump training or wearing a parachute 24/7. Some dwellings were literally clinging to cliff faces, sagging toward the boulder-strewn coast. Several times I asked myself, “How does one sleep comfortably in those conditions?”

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With a combination of steep scree slopes and crumbly rock, Big Sur has always been susceptible to shifting earth. Increased wildfires don’t help the mountainous topography. Burns followed by wet winters only enhance erosion. Between 2016 and 2023, Caltrans spent $315 million in emergency work, shoring up the volatile Big Sur region.
With Highway 1 (aka PCH) being closed going on two years, the ragged coast still beckoned. Most visitors that travel its curvy coast don’t get the chance to see the daunting perspective from sea level. Impressive would be an understatement. It’s a whole other world.

Chuck Graham
Calm After the Storm
It’s amazing what blue skies, puffy, white cumulous nimbus clouds, and California sunshine can do to brighten the outlook of a paddling excursion. After landing on a sliver of nondescript beach, the three of us shed our wetsuits, trading them in for baggies, hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen. We were gliding down the Big Sur Coast.
Still, there were other difficult landings in huge surf, moments of reflection beneath starry nights, and cool wildlife encounters, followed by challenging launches several hundred feet below PCH. From above, Big Sur always appeared intimidating. Paddling its coastline, the three of us agreed, was no joke.
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As we paddled south, the early winter tumult was in our rearview mirror, and gratefully the sun was on our right shoulders. The ocean had transformed into a brilliant azure blue while we paddled into residual southeast bump.
The surf was still sizable, but it didn’t seem as unruly as it was before sunup. Still, we had to dodge waves in the 6-to-10-foot range, with some bigger sets on wayward reefs. Sometimes we paddled around reefs. Others were timed between sets, enabling us to paddle quickly through those tricky passes.

Chuck Graham
One of our pit stops was Partington Cove. While eating lunch from the water, we watched a raft of southern sea otters napping on the canopy of the dense kelp forests. We admired how they used the kelp to wrap up in and then nap, their natural anchor keeping them in place.
At the height of the fur trade in the 18th century, these amazing marine mammals were hunted to near extinction. With one million hairs per square inch, their pelts were highly sought after. Since 1938, this keystone species has rebounded some. Today, there are about 3,100 southern sea otters—a far cry from when there were approximately 250,000.

Chuck Graham
Since the 1880s the tunnel at Partington Cove was a vital transport point between the ocean and Big Sur for Tanbark, but also for smuggling during Prohibition. Later, it was used as a supply point in the construction of Highway 1. The tunnel is still passable today, and from the highway it’s a cool little hike through dwarf redwoods, blackberry foliage, and a picturesque bridge before reaching the historic tunnel.
Speaking of tunnels, as we continued paddling southward, we snuck beneath several burly archways, where relatively calm waters allowed easy passage. It must’ve been a good spot. It was also occupied by a flotilla of otters, curious harbor seals, raucous California sea lions, and harbor porpoises.

Chuck Graham
Touching Down
Just 20 yards ahead of us, we paddled into the cetaceous wake of that small pod of harbor porpoises. I was also scoping out a landing spot for the night. The surf though was still booming out of the northwest, and our options were running thin.
There were a few spots to possibly land, but not cleanly. At best, a yard sale would’ve ensued with each option. I kept thinking, “It’ll be the next one…”
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I wasn’t planning on landing at Sand Dollar Beach, but it was near sunset and reaching the shore was now a priority. The last thing we wanted was to attempt to land somewhere in the dark. On the south side of the beach were several rock outcroppings with an impressive, river-like channel.
It was so impressive that, between the south side of the channel and the sheer cliff, 8-foot waves were breaking toward the channel—but then instantly backing off once they hit the channel. It was a possibiity, and looked deep enough even at low tide.

Kirk Hewlett/Getty Images
There was still a lot of water moving toward wet sand, rapids carrying us easily to the beach, as the tide was turning. Safely ashore in the nick of time, we hauled everything up the staircase and slept in the car park, thankful for solid ground. By the time we had all our gear at the top of the stairs, the incoming high tide was just lapping against the bottom of the cliff.
The night was active around three tired paddlers. Raccoons and skunks patrolled our tents, standups, and kayak. They were foraging, thoroughly investigating our gear, but we had all our food stuffed inside my kayak.

Chuck Graham
The next morning, though, we awoke to a crested alarm clock—the ever-present Steller’s jay. Its calls were so shrill, that there was no sleeping in for any of us.
According to Summit Daily, northwest Native Americans made many totem poles with the Steller’s jay as a lookout bird perched on top: “He is the message of hope in disrepair and the will to live,” notes one piece of mythology about these loquacious crested jays, as quoted in the periodical. “The jay is willing to teach you fearlessness, adaptability and survival but you must be willing to follow its lead.”
From the Sand Dollar Beach parking lot, we took the incessant squawking as a message to keep moving.

Chuck Graham
Quickly packing up, we headed back to the shore for another full day of paddling down the coast. The surf was still there in the morning, but so was our advantageous channel.
Back out on the water, the coastal mountains drifted eastward, and a dark wind-line developed a few miles off Big Sur. Soon, favorable northwest winds filled in along the craggy coast. They propelled us toward a long sandy beach just north of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse from where, nearing sunset, the automated light would beam and beckon.
Another messy landing would be awaiting us, but so would solid ground. By then, we expected as much. Nothing comes easy when paddling Big Sur—but the rewards, it turns out, are every bit as monumental.
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