This road closes. Slides, fires, washouts — it has been cut somewhere for a large part of the last decade. A guide that only works when the road is whole is a guide that fails exactly when people need it most.
The Plasketts have been on this coast since 1869, and the road being cut is not news to anybody in the family — it is most of the last decade. This is the same road-status page Place Name Guide publishes, kept here because people planning a visit to the south coast tend to start on this site.
Highway 1 is closed mid-coast. Both ends are open, and the inland crossing is open.
Verified 2026-08-21
Cause: Timber Fire, burning since 8 August 2026. The closure runs from Mile marker 44.5, just south of Post Ranch and Ventana
to Mile marker 37, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Reopening: No date announced.
Before you drive on this
Check with the agencies before you commit to a route.
This page is maintained carefully, but treat it as plus or minus 24 to 48 hours. During a fire or a storm a road can be opened in the morning and shut again by afternoon, and we will not always know before you do.
Nothing here is an authority. Before you drive on it, confirm with the Forest Service, the Sheriff's Office, Caltrans, and — for Nacimiento-Fergusson — Fort Hunter Liggett. If an agency and this page disagree, the agency is right.
We keep this as honest as we can. But fires, slides and floods do not check with anybody, and we are not the ones who decide what this coast does next.
Checked automatically at 08:00 and 20:00Caltrans reported as of Friday, August 21st, 2026 at 06:00 AM
This page has not been checked recently. A scheduled check has been missed, so what
follows may be out of date. Do not act on it — call Caltrans on 1-800-427-7623 or open
QuickMap before you drive.
What Caltrans is reporting for this stretch, in their words
Is closed from 5.5 mi north to 10.6 mi north of Slates Hot Springs (Monterey Co) - Due to a wildfire - Motorists are advised to use an alternate route
Also in effect
1-way controlled traffic 15.7 mi south of Monterey /at Rocky Creek Bridge/ (Monterey Co) 24 hrs a day 7 days a week thru 0600 hrs on 8/31/26 - Due to construction
1-way controlled traffic at various locations from Big Creek Vista Point to Big Creek Bridge (Monterey Co) from 0600 hrs to 1630 hrs Monday thru Friday thru 8/21/26 - Due to construction
Before you come
This coast has a temperament. Match it.
Be patient when it goes wrong, and it will. Roads close. Slides come down, fires start, bridges wash out, and the coast gets cut in half with no notice and no timeline. When that happens, the person in front of you at the counter has been living with it for years — it is their commute, their business, sometimes their home. They did not cause it and they cannot fix it. Getting angry at them about a road is the worst thing a visitor can do here, and it is remembered.
These are acts of God, and nobody here is in charge of them. The fire, the slide, the flood, the fog that hides the view you drove six hours for — none of it is anybody's fault, and none of it takes bookings. The coast does what it does. The people who have stayed here have made peace with that, and the visitors who enjoy it most are the ones who arrive already holding their plans loosely.
The coast reads as three pieces right now. Two of them you can drive.
Schematic. Coordinates marked 'repo' are the ones already carried in the route data; the rest are placed by hand to show the shape of the problem. Do not navigate by this.
North segment
Open
Carmel to mile marker 44.5
Reached from Carmel — US-101 to Salinas, then CA-68 over to Monterey
Point Lobos
Bixby Bridge
Point Sur Light
Pfeiffer Big Sur
Big Sur village
Post Ranch and Ventana
Middle segment
Closed
Mile marker 44.5 to mile marker 37
No way in while it is shut.
Nepenthe
Henry Miller Memorial Library
Deetjen's
Partington Cove
Julia Pfeiffer Burns and McWay Falls
South segment
Open
Mile marker 37 to San Simeon
Reached from San Simeon — US-101 at Paso Robles, then CA-46 west to the coast
Lucia
Limekiln
Kirk Creek
Pacific Valley
Plaskett Creek
Sand Dollar Beach
Gorda
Ragged Point
San Simeon
Three ways onto the coast
Two ends and a middle. The middle is the one nobody knows about.
Carmel
US-101 to Salinas, then CA-68 over to Monterey
reaches the north segment
San Simeon
US-101 at Paso Robles, then CA-46 west to the coast
reaches the south segment
King City
US-101, then County G14 through Lockwood to Jolon
reaches the middle
Nacimiento-Fergusson Road
The only road across the Santa Lucia Range between Monterey and Cambria.
24.5 micoast to Jolon
2,780′summit
7.6%average grade
11.5%steepest
West end at Highway 1 at Kirk Creek Bridge, east end at Mission Road at Jolon.
Reopened 15 November 2024, after nearly four years closed by the Dolan Fire.
Where it meets the coast — and where you get out
Highway 1 at Kirk Creek Bridge
It is the one place you can enter this coast in the middle instead of at an end. Arrive over the top and both arms open in front of you.
↑ North
Limekiln, New Camaldoli Hermitage, Lucia
as far as the closure at Julia Pfeiffer Burns
↓ South
Mill Creek, Pacific Valley, Sand Dollar, Plaskett Creek, Gorda, Treebones, Ragged Point
as far as San Simeon and US-101
And it puts you back on US-101 at either end — Jolon is a fork, not a
dead end.
Left (north-east) at JolonJolon Road to King CityUS-101 north, for Salinas, Monterey and the Bay
Right (south-east) at Jolonthrough Lockwood and BradleyUS-101 south at Paso Robles, for the Central Valley and Los Angeles
Before you commit to it
Steep, narrow and winding — seven miles of it at eight to ten per cent. Not a road for a big rig or a towed trailer.
It crosses Fort Hunter Liggett, an active Army post. Carry your vehicle registration and proof of insurance.
It closes on occasion for artillery and tank exercises. That is a real closure, not a suggestion. Be ready to turn around and be ready to wait — hours is possible. They plan well and usually tell you the scoop, but an emergency changes that. Carry fuel, food and an alternative: back out to 101 and around to whichever end of the coast you wanted.
No fuel, no food and no signal for the whole crossing.
The coastal end, at the bridge. The campground sits on the bluff right here, and this is where you rejoin Highway 1.
The summit
2,780 feet, about seven miles up from the ocean. On a clear day you see the whole south coast behind you at once.
Fort Hunter Liggett
An active Army installation, and the reason to have your paperwork in the glovebox. The road runs through it on the eastern descent.
Mission San Antonio de Padua
Founded 14 July 1771 by Junípero Serra, the third mission in Alta California. It stands on Fort Hunter Liggett land, in open country with nothing modern around it — which is why it looks more like itself than almost any other mission in the state.
Jolonsay ho-LONE
Not 'JO-lon'. It is ho-LONE — a Salinan name, and one of those places where saying it right marks you as someone who has actually been. The settlement sits in the San Antonio River valley, entirely surrounded by the post.
Lockwood
On County G14 between Jolon and the highway. Blink and you have driven through it.
King City
US-101, and the end of the crossing. Fuel, food and a signal again.
So you are not stuck
Two ways the crossing turns a dead end back into a trip.
The middle is closed and you are coming from far awayThis is the one that applies today
King City → Jolon → Nacimiento-Fergusson → Kirk Creek, then south
You reach Highway 1 at Kirk Creek, well below the closure, with the whole south coast open in front of you — Gorda, Sand Dollar, Plaskett Creek, Ragged Point. You can also run a short way north to Lucia before the road stops.
The south is closed
Monterey → Highway 1 south → Nacimiento-Fergusson → King City → US-101
Drive the north coast as far as it goes, then turn inland at Kirk Creek and come out on the 101 instead of doubling back the way you came.
Both arms are troubled
King City → Jolon → Nacimiento-Fergusson → north a way, south a way, back the same road
Even with the coast cut on both sides of the junction you are not shut out. Come over the top, run as far north as the road allows, come back and run as far south as it allows, and return inland the way you came. You get the coast with nobody else on it, which is not the worst way to see it.