Big Sur hit again as huge landslide covers Highway 1

The isolation that came to Big Sur this year when wet weather closed several roads has deepened with a giant mudslide across Highway 1, just south of the small community of Gorda (Monterey County).

A quarter-mile-wide wall of mud and rock barreled over an oceanfront stretch of road Saturday night, fortunately on a section of the highway where there was no traffic because the area was already closed due to smaller slides.

The new slide is certain to postpone the opening of Highway 1 at Big Sur’s southern end, a link to the dramatic coastline that was expected to open in mid-June.

This aerial photo taken Monday, May 22, 2017, and provided by John Madonna, shows a massive landslide along California’s coastal Highway 1 that has buried the road under a 40-foot layer of rock and dirt. A swath of the hillside gave way in an area called Mud Creek on Saturday, May 20, covering about one-third of a mile, half a kilometer, of road and changing the Big Sur coastline. less This aerial photo taken Monday, May 22, 2017, and provided by John Madonna, shows a massive landslide along California’s coastal Highway 1 that has buried the road under a 40-foot layer of rock and dirt. A ... more Photo: John Madonna, Associated Press Photo: John Madonna, Associated Press Image 1 of / 72 Caption Close Big Sur hit again as huge landslide covers Highway 1 1 / 72 Back to Gallery

The months-long closure between Gorda and Ragged Point, on top of another closure to the north between Limekiln State Park and Big Sur State Park, has made it difficult for residents and tourists to access the area since the beginning of the year.

The California Department of Transportation said Tuesday that crews haven’t yet thoroughly evaluated damage at the Mud Creek slide, about nine miles north of the Monterey-San Luis Obispo county line. Dirt and rock there is still moving, and getting in is dangerous, officials said.

But they know the situation is bad — more than a million tons of debris buried the road and crashed into the sea, officials said.

“It would be like coming home and your house is torn up,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Susana Cruz. “Where do even you start? This is huge.”

Caltrans had been working for months to clear the span of Highway 1 of several smaller slides, even opening it certain times of the day to allow traffic to get through. But last week, crews pulled out of the area when more mud began to trickle down from the hills above.

“We’re glad nobody was there,” Cruz said. “It could have been really catastrophic if someone was around.”

Locals say the new avalanche of mud rivals a notorious slide in 1983 that covered Highway 1 to the north at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. That blast of debris took 14 months to clear.

While Caltrans officials can’t yet project when the new slide might be removed, they’re still on track to open the closed stretch of road to the north starting at the end of June, with a full opening that includes the damaged Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge at the end of September. Until then, only a 10-mile stretch of road between the two closures is accessible via the long, twisting Nacimiento-Ferguson Road from the east.

“As my grandmother used to say, you have to be a rugged individual to sustain a lifestyle here,” said KirkGafill, a co-owner and general manager of Nepenthe Restaurant, which sits along a closed section of Highway 1. “I think a lot of us are starting to figure out how rugged we are — or not.”