High Sierra Topix

I just spent a few days over on the coast in the Monterey area, camping at Pfeiffer Big Sur and taking in the coastal scents and scenery. The coast of couse is rugged and beautiful, and the wildflowers were amazing, blooming everywhere and filling the air with a very heady perfume!

Pfeiffer Big Sur is one of the nicest coastal campgrounds I've visited, and has many hiking trails. We also stopped in at Pt. Lobos State Reserve, a very beautiful place out on the tip of the Monterey Pennisula with trails that go across the coastal strand and out along the cliffs.

The coast is very pretty this time of year.

Cool. How far south did you get? The area around Lime Kiln and Sand Dollar Beach is pretty cool and generally less crowded than the northern Big Sur areas. A little bit of "surf spire" climbing to be had also.

Yep, Sand Dollar is one of my favorites as well.

We only got south as far as Pfeiffer Big Sur, although I have been to Lime Kiln before. Usually I visit Montana de Oro and camp there. This trip was a combo trip as my teenage daughter wanted to check out the university campus in Monterey, so we did a combo camping and day hiking and town trip. As for climbing cliffs with precipitous drops: YIKES! (My back can't take that kind of workout). We did go to the Monterey Aquarium which is pretty cool/amazing/awesome even with the crowds of people.

The scenery along the Big Sur River is intriguing, with very slick water smoothed boulders and some nice cliffs, although from the campground at Pfeiffer Big Sur SP, the trail seemed short and it looked like one had to either go up the hill through lots of poison oak, or swim across the river to get to the trail we could see on the other side.