Pacific Coast Tour – Day 46 – 47; Pfeiffer Big Sur to San Simeon

Day: 46
September 1, 2021

Distance: 38 miles (1765 total)
Pfeiffer Big Sur to Gorda

So that hill we thought we had mastered the day before? That’s what today started with. I always prefer it when the hills are earlier because you’re fresh, so it wasn’t too bad. And there was a bakery at the top – a whopping 2 miles into our ride.

The downhill off that first hill was back along the coast with glorious views. The wind was a lot calmer today as well, making it more pleasant to ride and easier to search the calm waters for marine life. It may have been helped by the weather, but this portion of the Big Sur was even prettier and more magnificent than yesterday’s. Just nonstop views that always seemed to be better than the last.

As we were searching for our desired lunch spot we dropped a chain for the umpteenth time on this trip. It was right next to a pull off with some shade, so we took it as a sign and stopped for lunch. We stared out at the calm blue waters for a while, but still only saw birds in terms of wildlife for the day.

After lunch we kept on rolling. When we hit up Lucia we had optimistically thought that we may find cell service there since the town was billed as a ‘resort town’ on our map. But in reality it had one lodge, and sadly their kitchen and general store had burned down! So at least for the time being there weren’t many services left in Lucia.

Just south of Lucia there were some construction workers out bringing the traffic down to one lane. As we were about to get in line behind the flagger, we hear a shout of glee come from a pulled over car. The man who had exclaimed jumped out of his car and ran towards the edge. Naturally we followed their eyelines, and sure enough there was a very active humpback whale. Turns out there were several. We watched for a few minutes as the whales spouted water, waved, and jumped. It was the best whale watching either of us had experienced. By the time we decided to carry on, the flagger was packing up and it was back to two way traffic. As we continued riding south we saw at least 8 (likely more) whales having a grand ole time.

Our planned campground for the evening was Plaskett Creek USFS. We had heard whisperings that USFS campgrounds were all closed, but it wasn’t until we rolled past the completely deserted Kirk Creek campground with their restrooms locked up that we started to realize we’d have to find somewhere else to stay. Apparently the closure went into effect at midnight the night before – excellent timing on our part.

As you can imagine the rugged, pristine area that makes up the Big Sur is lacking in cell service and towns. From our map we knew there was the ‘town’ of Gorda another 5 miles past Plaskett, or another 30 miles past that to the next town of San Simeon, which is also where the next non USFS campground is. Based on the Big Sur elevation, we were trying to keep our days shorter, with San Simeon actually being the goal for the next day… so carrying on wasn’t really a viable option for us.

A more hardcore tourer, like the British woman we passed today, would have just planned to stealth camp for the night. But we like having bathrooms, and had already been considering treating ourselves to a hotel soon anyway so when we rolled into Gorda and saw a vacancy sign next to their cabins we sprung at the chance. Our cabin even came with a ‘partial view’. No Wi-Fi though, although the shopkeeper graciously shared hers after hearing of our adventure and lack of service the past couple days.

Day: 47
September 2, 2021

Distance: 32 miles (1797 total)
Gorda to San Simeon State Park

With the comfy bed we slept in pretty late for us (so 7:30). We opted to take advantage of the café by the cabin and enjoyed a hearty breakfast with real coffee and a view of the ocean. Given our leisurely morning we got out of Gorda around 10:30.

The morning started off with another rather large climb. We were thankful to have not tried to carry on past Gorda the day before. The climb was slow, but not bad since it came with lots of scenic vistas.

About 10 miles in we made it to Ragged Point which did have an inn and a café as well. We stopped to use their restrooms, and while Andrew watched the bike, per usual, some friendly folk came up to inquire about our travels. I guess we made a nice impression with one of the men, because he graciously donated $100 for us to “get a nice Dungeness crab” in Morro Bay. I didn’t want to get into the whole vegetarian thing, but we’re still thankful for the donation!

After Ragged Point the riding was pretty flat and easy. It also helps that we apparently had a nice tailwind. We stopped for lunch at the Elephant Seal viewing area. One of the docents informed us that the hundreds of seals we saw were actually not that many, as all the females had already left to start their journey up to Alaska.

We got to San Simeon fairly early with a lot of energy. We considered carrying on the extra 20 miles to the next (better) campground, but trying to look further ahead in the mileage it didn’t really save us anything, and it was the hottest part of the day, so we opted to stick with our plan and stay at San Simeon State Park.

The campground itself, as expected, wasn’t the greatest. It was right off the highway with no shade at the hiker/biker sites. It was also full of chubby ground squirrels that had clearly been fed by previous tenant’s. And we lost our cell service that we had just gotten in town! To make up for the bad service, it did come with free Wi-Fi near the ranger station. The campground did have access down to the ocean as well, so we decided to wander over there with our abundance of time.

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