Starting just north of Hearst Castle, the ninety wild and undeveloped miles of rocky cliffs of the Big Sur coast form a sublime landscape at the edge of the continent, where redwood groves line river canyons and the Santa Lucia Mountains rise straight out of the blue-green Pacific. Only the occasional outpost interrupts the tortuous, exhilarating route of Hwy-1 , carved out of bedrock cliffs 500ft above the ocean, and public transportation is limited to the MST bus (tel 831/899-2555, ), which runs south from Monterey to Nepenthe twice daily during the summer. Summer weekends see the roads and campgrounds packed to overflowing, and hardly anyone braves the turbulent winters when violent storms can erode cliffsides and toss sections of the highway into the sea. The southern coastline of Big Sur is relatively gentle, with sandy beaches hiding below crumbling ochre cliffs.

Roughly midway along the Big Sur coast, ESALEN is named after the long-gone Native Americans who once enjoyed its natural hot spring , on a clifftop high above the raging Pacific surf. Since the 1960s, when people came to Big Sur to smoke pot and get back to nature, Esalen has been at the forefront of the New Age movement, and the spring is now owned and operated by the Esalen Institute, which offers workshops on "potentialities and values of human existence" (by reservation only; tel 831/667-3005, ), although most yuppies simply come for the yoga and massage treatments.

Three miles north on Hwy-1, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (daily dawn-dusk; $6 parking), has some of the best day-hikes in the Big Sur area, including a ten-minute walk along the cliffs to see McWay Falls crashing down onto the beach, and, two miles north below Hwy-1, a 200ft-long tunnel gets you to Partington Cove , rare beach access for this rugged spot. As with other Big Sur-area parks, Pfeiffer Burns provides camping sites for $12-14 a night (reservations on 831/667-2315), while private operations like nearby Ventana Campground (tel 831/667-2712, ) offer campsites for $25, including bath houses with hot water and electricity. Seven miles north of Pfeiffer Burns, lovely old Deetjen's Big Sur Inn (tel 831/667-2377; $130-160) has rooms hand-crafted from thick redwood planks and in-room fireplaces, as well as fine breakfasts and fish and veggie meals in its dining room.

Further north at NEPENTHE , the rooftop Nepenthe restaurant, just off Hwy-1, offers pricey steaks and seafood, though you can find more impressive views, and more affordable prices, at Café Kevah (tel 831/667-2344), serving breakfast and lunch on a terrace. Just across the highway, at the Henry Miller Library (Wed-Sun 11am-6pm; suggested donation), books by the author, who lived in the area intermittently until the 1960s, are displayed and sold. Two miles north along Hwy-1, the unmarked Sycamore Canyon Road leads a mile west to Big Sur's best beach, Pfeiffer Beach ; the white sand here is dominated by a hump of rock whose color varies from brown to red to orange in the changing light.

Big Sur coast

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