Feb 7, 2026 - We have a long weekend, because Elaine's school district has Lincoln's Birthday off, so we're going to spend Sunday/Monday in Big Sur. It was another beautiful day on Saturday, so we drove to the State Park down the street from us, Montana de Oro for a walk on Sandspit Beach.
Sandspit Beach is right inside Montana de Oro.
There is a nice trail from the parking lot to the beach
Pretty yellow flowers
There's the beach
And a walk down the dune
There's Morro Rock and 3 stacks
down the dune we go
It's a pretty empty beach
And a 7 mile walk down sandspit beach if we want to stand across from Morro Rock (which we do want to do, without walking 14 miles round trip). Maybe one day we'll bring our bikes down here and ride them on the beach to the end.
I think these are plovers
It was a little foggy today
Such a pretty walk
nice dunes
we made it back up
and enjoyed the view from the bench before going to the parking lot
I spied an orange in Robin's garden as we were leaving this morning
We decided to stop to see the Elephant Seals at San Simeon (about 45 minutes into our drive). This 7 mile stretch of beach, the Piedras Blancas rookery, is home to 25,000 Elephant Seals. The seals can be viewed here all year, with peak activity in January for birthing.
So sleepy!!
You can see the Piedras Blancas Light Station in the distance (maybe we'll do that tour some time).
Aren't they cute, all snuggled up?
That's a lot of Elephant Seals!
It's a little misty in the distance, but it's a warm (70ish degrees) sunny day!
We stopped at a lot of turn outs for views
Kevin liked this lonely tree on the rock. He said it reminded him of the tree that grows on the old bridge in the Keys, named Fred. We decided to call this tree Pat, after our neighbor in Westfield (Fred's wife).
This is where the land slide was. They had to rebuild the road and secure the hillside, with steel mesh. The road just opened a month ago, and looks like there is still work going on.
Big Creek Bridge
McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer State Park, falls 80 feet. During high tide it is a tidefall (a waterfall that falls directly into the ocean). The only other tidefall in California is Alamere Falls
The only way to see the falls is a small pull out on the highway. The trail to get there, is under construction and closed
The State Park that the falls are in is named after Julia Pfeiffer, who came to Big Sur as an infant when her parents came here in 1869 as homesteaders. She was a lifelong resident and rancher.
Really pretty spot. I would like to come back at sunset, when I bet you can see the waterfall better. In the morning it is in the shadows
We stopped at another turnout and had lunch with a view
this view needs a selfie
OK, one more pic
another turn out, another view
and a condor mosaic
Next we stopped at the Partington Cove Trail for a quick 1.2 mile hike. Notice the Lupines along the trail.
It was a wide trail at the top
the trail split and we took the left trail over the bridge
which led to this cool tunnel. This tunnel was built by John Partington in the 1880s to transport materials made from the tanbark oak from the mountains down to the cove. It was later used to provide supplies to build highway 1. The highway took 18 years to build, and was quite the engineering feat (construction was from 1919-1937)
Partington Cove
This was where the loading dock used to be
After our walk to Partington Cove we took the right side of the path down to the rocky beach
great place for a selfie
and to enjoy the view
Our next stop was Big Sur River Inn. Elaine gave us the heads up to get a beer here and take it down to the Big Sur River and enjoy our beers while sitting in the Adirondack chairs in the River. The water was refreshing (AKA cold!)
One lone chair
We stopped at the Big Sur Lodge to check in. They gave us a pass to get into 3 of the local state parks (Julia Pfeiffer SP, Pfeiffer Big Sur SP and Andrew Molero SP)
Our next hike was in Big Pfeiffer SP (we left from the lodge). We did the Pfeiffer Falls Trail, which was a 1.5 mile hike with 400 feet elevation (mostly through stairs).
Walking through the Redwoods
Redwoods are the world's tallest living trees. They can grow to be over 350 feet tall and can be over 1000-2200 years old. They only grow along the foggy northern California and Oregon coasts
There were quite a few stairs up
Pfeiffer Falls is 60 ft
We love a good tree arch
It's Super Bowl Sunday, so we went to the Big Sur Tap Room, which was 5 minutes from the Big Sur Lodge. This mug says "Fine tastes the wine from a jug of stone"
We had a nice little spot to watch from and enjoyed our burgers and beers (and the game)
Feb 9, 2026 - We're headed home today and will stop and find breakfast somewhere along the way. First we will do a few hikes that are close to the Lodge.
The hotel room was perfect with a big window looking out at the woods, and a deck to enjoy the view from
Warden's Path, River Path and a Nature Trail all wind around the river. We tried to hit them all and hiked around a mile and a half before hopping in the car to head home.
More Redwoods
Pretty bench under the Redwoods
Elaine recommended Kevah Cafe for breakfast, about 5 minutes from the Lodge. Google said it was open at 9AM, so we got there right at 9:00
When we walked up the steps to the cafe, there was a sign saying it was closed for the season and would open back up on President's Day weekend (next weekend). Too bad, guess we'll have to come back. Quite a view!!!
We had to stop at a few turn outs for some last pics of the coast
I got a little better pic of the Big Creek Bridge this time
We stopped at the Whale Watchers Cafe, which didn't quite have the view of Kevah Cafe, but it wasn't bad either. Nice ending to our Big Sur weekend!
