The Plaskett Family

More than a century on the Big Sur coast

place history

Jade Cove Today: Hunting Green Stone on Mabel's Coast

· 2026

Sixty-some years after Mabel sent her readers to Jade Cove, her great-grandson climbed down the rope to the same tideline — and the green stone is still there.

Jade Cove from the bluff, looking south down the coast toward Gorda and the Plaskett country — kelp beds offshore and Cave Rock standing in the swell. LIVE
Jade Cove from the bluff, looking south down the coast toward Gorda and the Plaskett country — kelp beds offshore and Cave Rock standing in the swell.

When Mabel Plaskett wrote about the “famous Jade Cove” in her Cabrillo Highway drive and told The Land’s readers that the rugged Monterey coast was “a paradise for rock hounds,” she was describing a place her family had known for ninety years already — the cove sits just south of Pacific Valley, in sight of the Plaskett homestead country.

In 2026, Bill “Bull Plaskett” Alderson and Kim Alderson made the trip Mabel’s readers made: pull off Highway 1 at the Jade Cove sign, cross the bluff, and take the steep serpentine gully down to the water — the last pitch on a fixed rope that rockhounds have kept anchored there for generations.

At the bottom, nothing important has changed. The cliffs are still green-stained serpentine, the tideline is still a churn of storm-polished pebbles, and the kelp still rides the swell in dark beds offshore. Nephrite jade still turns up for patient eyes — sea-worn, soap-smooth, heavier than it looks — especially after winter storms rearrange the cove.

A note for modern jade hunters: collecting is allowed only below the mean high-tide line, by hand — what the sea offers you at your feet is yours; everything above the tideline stays. The cove is inside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and the annual Big Sur Jade Festival at Pacific Valley every fall carries the tradition on, a short walk from where the Plasketts’ fifty children grew up.

Photographs
Kim Alderson on the rope-assisted scramble down the serpentine cliff into Jade Cove — rockhounds have kept this route open for generations. LIVE
Kim Alderson on the rope-assisted scramble down the serpentine cliff into Jade Cove — rockhounds have kept this route open for generations.
Kelp beds ride the swell off Jade Cove, dark heads bobbing clear to the horizon. LIVE
Kelp beds ride the swell off Jade Cove, dark heads bobbing clear to the horizon.
The waterline at Jade Cove: green-stained serpentine cliffs — the jade-bearing rock that draws the rock hounds Mabel wrote about. LIVE
The waterline at Jade Cove: green-stained serpentine cliffs — the jade-bearing rock that draws the rock hounds Mabel wrote about.
Storm-polished pebbles at the Jade Cove tideline. Patient eyes still pick nephrite jade out of the grey. LIVE
Storm-polished pebbles at the Jade Cove tideline. Patient eyes still pick nephrite jade out of the grey.
Grey-green serpentine boulders pile the shore at Jade Cove — every stone a candidate until it isn't. LIVE
Grey-green serpentine boulders pile the shore at Jade Cove — every stone a candidate until it isn't.
Low tide among the boulders at Jade Cove, the kelp forest laid out flat and quiet beyond. LIVE
Low tide among the boulders at Jade Cove, the kelp forest laid out flat and quiet beyond.
Swirled white-and-green rock walls of the cove — the colors that give Jade Cove its name. LIVE
Swirled white-and-green rock walls of the cove — the colors that give Jade Cove its name.
Looking down into Jade Cove from the descent: the rocky beach where generations have hunted green stone. LIVE
Looking down into Jade Cove from the descent: the rocky beach where generations have hunted green stone.
The Jade Cove pullout on Highway 1 — Kim Alderson at the trailhead, Cave Rock offshore, and the coast running south into the haze.
The Jade Cove pullout on Highway 1 — Kim Alderson at the trailhead, Cave Rock offshore, and the coast running south into the haze.
Where this story happened