Big Sur >> Caltrans said Monday its unclear how long Highway 1 in southern Big Sur will remain closed after a landslide covering between a quarter and a half mile brought millions of cubic yards of dirt and rock down the hillside at Mud Creek on Saturday.

According to Caltrans spokeswoman Susana Cruz, there are five active landslides in the area, which is about 9 miles north of the southern Monterey County border. It’s believed four of the slides came down together at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Springs in the area keep the soil muddy, she said.

“There was so much saturation and so much weight,” Cruz said.

Kirk Gafill, president of the Big Sur Chamber of Commerce and Nepenthe Restaurant’s owner and general manager, grew up in Big Sur. Gafill, 55, said the only landslide in the area he can remember that was as big as the one at Mud Creek was in 1983 just north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

“That location was closed for 14 months,” he said.

Both Gafill and Cruz said it would be conjecture to say how long Highway 1 will remain closed this time.

Gafill’s grandparents founded Nepenthe. He said it can be hard to compare the scale of the two events, but the Mud Creek slide was one of the largest in his lifetime along the Big Sur coast.

“If it’s not the biggest, it’s certainly right up there,” he said.

Cruz said the Mud Creek slide is the biggest she can remember since joining Caltrans in 2001. She said a slide near Mud Creek at Duck Pond during the El Niño winter of 1998 caused major damage.

Caltrans closed Highway 1 at Ragged Point, near the county border, months ago because of the landslides at Mud Creek.

The slide activity at Mud Creek started back in January and hasn’t relented all year. Cruz said the road and the hillside were at a steep angle. Highway 1 had already been down to only a partial lane before the slide. She said the remaining part of the road was likely wiped out by the slide and Caltrans says the road bed is covered in 35-40 feet of rock and dirt.

“We have no idea how to assess it right now until it stops moving,” she said. “So we have no idea on a time frame (of when the highway will reopen).”

Gafill joked that perhaps they were being semi-delusional, but the slide brought about hope among some of the residents and business owners in Big Sur.

“One big slide took out all those smaller slides,” he said. “So if that has the effect of creating the possibility that stability for that area may be restored if the pressure on it kind of pushed out all of that excess material.”

He said he’s hopeful that the slide ended the waiting game as Caltrans waited for stability in the hillside before taking action to restore Highway 1.

“So I guess the question is, ‘How quickly does this stabilize?’” Gafill said.

Gafill said the Highway 1 closure at Mud Creek, along with the closures at Big Sur Station and Paul’s Slide remain huge impediments to businesses in the area. The Big Sur Station closure should remain until September, when the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge replacement reconnects the two segments of Big Sur. While residents have been allowed limited access through Paul’s Slide, Caltrans may cancel the access windows depending on safety as it did Monday. The targeted public access date had been mid-June, but Caltrans now says it will reassess the date after recent landslides.

Cruz said work stopped at Paul’s Slide on Monday because of slide movement and work will be halted Tuesday.

“At (Paul’s Slide) it doesn’t seem as perilous (as Mud Creek),” she said. “But it has been a little bit active so we need to take that precaution.”

Tommy Wright can be reached at 831-726-4375.