California Coast & Ocean

The Northernmost Stretch: Ocean Vistas, Grassy Bluffs, and Thriving Tidepools
Arroyo de la Cruz to Breaker Point (2 miles)
Park managers familiar with the 13 miles of coastal land recently added to San Simeon State Park consider the northernmost two miles to be the most ecologically rich and least disturbed by human activities. Here the visitor will find magnificent ocean vistas with Big Sur as a backdrop, rolling grasslands, tall coastal bluffs, acres of tidepools, and the park’s northernmost sandy beach.

“This really feels like the gateway to Big Sur,” said Barandon.

This part of the park stretches north from Arroyo de la Cruz; a small ranch house on the inland side of Highway 1 marks the northern boundary. This stretch has had so little use by the public that many of its features are unnamed. There are no established entry points, and getting into this part of the park can be difficult. Park managers say they need to complete their resource inventory and take public input before deciding where access points and trailheads will be located. In the meantime, they recommend that visitors find a place to park safely off the highway and walk along the barbed-wire fence to find a place to climb over or under. In several places, strands of the barbed wire have been cut; look for well-trodden paths in the grass that lead to them. During dry season, when the creek does not flow into the ocean, another option is to walk north from Arroyo de la Cruz, where a pedestrian entrance has recently been installed.

Just north of Arroyo de la Cruz is Point Sierra Nevada, a rocky cape named after a steamship that ran aground near there in heavy fog on Oct. 17, 1869. All the passengers were saved, but the ship was a complete loss. For detailed period newspaper accounts of the shipwreck, go to www.pt5dome.com/snwreck.htm.

Running along the upper flank of Point Sierra Nevada is the northernmost beach in the park. With the exception of a driftwood shelter or crude bench here and there, it is so free of human imprints that it’s easy to imagine you are the first person to walk these sands.

Undulating sand dunes behind this beach are remarkably free of ice plant and other invasive plants, Barandon said. He plans to use them as a model for dune restoration projects in other parts of the park.

North of the beach, all but the most determined waders and rock hoppers will want to walk up onto the bluffs to continue the hike. There are no trails, only a few overgrown cow paths.

Park managers say that for safety reasons, the Coastal Trail will traverse this part of the park well back of the bluffs, with a few spur trails to scenic overlooks. The bluffs here are the tallest and steepest in the park.

The landscape north of the beach is mostly grassland, and the walking is generally smooth going. The only obstacles are occasional clumps of coastal scrub and chest-high fields of wild mustard. Some of the park’s rarest plants can be seen in these grasslands, including the Hearst manzanita and Hearst ceanothus, evergreen shrubs that grow on the Hearst Ranch and nowhere else.

An extremely lucky hiker might even glimpse Roosevelt elk, one of several exotic animals introduced to the ranch by William Randolph Hearst. Elk hoofprints have been found in this part of the park, Barandon said.

About a mile north of Arroyo de la Cruz, hikers will encounter Arroyo de los Chinos Creek. Park archaeologists have found geraniums blooming near its mouth, indicating that a homestead once stood there; perhaps that of a Chinese kelp harvester or ranch hand.

Arroyo de los Chinos flows year-round and is overgrown with willows and other plants. Hikers should look for remnants of an old roadbed that cuts into the creek banks, and follow an old cow trail across the creek.

A large promontory is visible to the north of Arroyo de los Chinos. The view from its crest toward Big Sur is among the most spectacular in California.

In the foreground, gently sloping hills covered with maritime grasses and chaparral lead to a wide bay studded with surf-battered rocks and sea stacks. In the background, the Santa Lucia Range rises abruptly from the ocean. After pausing to soak in this majestic scene, hikers can continue north and find another obscure remnant of the ranch’s history. Perched on the edge of the bluffs are rusty bundles of heavy-duty cables and cross plates. Park managers say they do not know why the cables are there or what they might have been used for.

At the foot of the bluffs beneath the cables, a broad rocky bench jutting into the ocean is festooned with bright yellow squares bolted into the rock. The squares are part of a research station, one of many scattered along the West Coast, where university biologists study how tidepools change over time and how they are affected by human activity.

Researchers will be watching these tidepools closely to see how they change as a result of increased human visitation, said Pete Raimondi, a biology professor at UC Santa Cruz who heads the study along the Central Coast.

“Those are some of the most pristine areas we have,” he said. “We are concerned about increased usage now that the ranch has been opened to the public.”

Past the tidepool monitoring area, the park narrows to several hundred feet, then broadens again. Hikers will come to several small seasonal creeks that are best crossed near the highway, where they are shallowest. This area offers more tall coastal bluffs and multiple offshore pinnacles. Soon hikers will reach a larger creek at the northern boundary of the park, marked by a fence. The area to the north, Ragged Point, remains part of the Hearst Ranch. A mile and half to the north, at the mouth of San Carpoforo Creek, is a sliver of parkland, but there is little to distinguish it from adjacent Los Padres National Forest.