BIG SUR — There’s a new opening date for the south entrance to Big Sur: mid-September, nearly a year and a half after fierce winter rains triggered a massive Mud Creek slide that covered iconic Highway 1.
That means persistent hard times for Big Sur businesses that rely on tourism from Lucia, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and other Southern California cities.
The new ¼-mile Highway 1 roadway — which will traverse over the slide area using a series of embankments, berms, rocks, netting, culverts and other stabilizing material — was originally scheduled to be opened “late summer.”
The new date, announced Monday, offers more specific information for those who hope to travel to the region.
Until then, the breathtaking coastal region will remain a cul-de-sac, accessible only from the north and east
Highway 1 has posed challenges ever since its asphalt was first poured along a ledge in Big Sur’s steep sandstone and shale cliffs in the 1920s and 1930s. More than 60 times in its history, the route has been buried by landslides.
Even before the destructive 2016-2017 winter rains, about $130 million had been budgeted over the next decade for Highway 1’s repair, replacement and realignment.
But the 2016-2017 winter storm season was stunning in its scope. On May 20, 2017, the Mud Creek landslide sent more than 5 million cubic yards of rock and dirt onto the roadway and into the ocean, making it the largest-ever documented slide along the Big Sur coast.
The landslide created a new apronlike point into the Pacific Ocean, expanding the California coast by a stunning 13 acres — the size of 10 football fields.
Caltrans’ geotechnical and engineering personnel are using radar assessments and other data to find the best route through the slide site.
“The whole environment is very unstable, with steep rock right on the coast and really complex geology,” said Gary Griggs, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, in a 2017 interview. “It is just a messy area.”
