A sweeping new proposal for how the U.S. Forest Service envisions managing the millions who visit Big Sur each year has both garnered support and raised concern among those who call the densely forested yet sparsely populated region home.The suggestions within the report include some radical departures from the area’s current policies. Most notably, there could be a reservation system for popular spots like the Pine Ridge Trail and Pfeiffer Beach. “We’re seeing year-over-year sizable increases of visitors to Big Sur, and we don’t have the carrying capacity to accommodate that level,” Los Padres National Forest spokesperson Andrew Madsen told SFGATE on Tuesday. “Whether it’s a reservation system to implement at trailheads or recreation sites … what the plan did is establish some baselines we can operate off of.”Following three years of studies and public outreach, the Los Padres National Forest Monterey Ranger District released a draft of the document, the Coastal Zone Visitor Use Management Strategy, in late April. The plan is the result of the forest service’s attempt to address “challenges of managing visitor use to minimize impacts to resources and infrastructure while maintaining recreation opportunities and access,” according to the report’s summary. “There was enormous public input both from residents in Big Sur, along with key partners and residential interest groups,” Madsen continued, noting he was just hours away from hosting a virtual public meeting Tuesday evening to get public feedback on the report. “We will continue to work with the community and interested members of the public and interest groups, so we can have a sustainable level of recreation use.”Madsen anticipated a lot of discussion over a proposed reservation system for cars camping along public roads, including unpaved roads and pullouts in the south coast region of Big Sur, where car campers and day visitors have traditionally enjoyed spontaneous and unimpeded access. “The south coast roads, Plaskett Ridge Road, Los Burros , over COVID, there was an explosion of camping all over social media,” Madsen explained. “It’s free car camping, but you’re not going to have a bathroom, no trash receptacles, no campfires. Maybe we need a reservation system there, where we allow 15 vehicles come up for a three days, two nights kind of thing and have a reservation. Those are all things that would be on the table.”The pilot “designated dispersed” camping program would potentially help track the number of visitors to certain spots in the region, meet their needs and help mitigate the effects of human use, Madsen said.The program would also potentially ease the burden on areas that are “experiencing unprecedented visitor use, resulting in traffic congestion, and expanding dispersed camping that is becoming concentrated on previously undisturbed areas,” the study said. “This is resulting in increased fire risk, human waste and litter issues, deteriorated road conditions, offroad vehicle use and associated resource impacts, and conflicts with local landowners.” Artfully implementing these strategies, while helping locals navigate everyday life here, is a balance that is admittedly “difficult to strike,” said Marcus Foster, co-founder and co-chairperson of the group Keep Big Sur Wild. The group has tasked itself with helping the region stick as closely as possible to the 1986 Big Sur Coast Land Use Plan.Foster said he and his organization have collaborated and provided input to the Forest Service on the plan. At the same time, “we do have some issues with it,” he told SFGATE on Sunday.“From the beginning, we always felt the high-impacted and high visitor use areas have a need for reservation systems,” he said, pointing to the success of similar systems in Hawaii. “The reservation side of this plan is appropriate. I think you’re seeing that in other locations, the Napali Coast in Hawaii is an example of something that works.” A reservation system would positively impact most residents who live near the most frequented spots. Those who live along Sycamore Canyon Road on the way down to Pfeiffer Beach are “losing their minds,” Foster continued. “The Forest Service is figuring out carrying capacity. Pfeiffer Beach is one example. There is always a big issue — just the popularity of that beach with the limited parking.”But Foster said the group has concerns over other aspects of the plan: “There are some things in this plan: increasing infrastructure, enhancing accessibility, promoting sustainable recreational practices, that are all very well-intentioned, but they’ll attract visitors to the area,” he said. “... Shuttles, visitors’ centers, restrooms and you know basically just increasing parking lots in some areas. In our opinion, it kind of appears to support increased visitation that could benefit commercial interests.” One seemingly innocuous example of this would be the proposed conversion of the existing ranger station at Salmon Creek and state Route 1 into a visitor center. Built in 1932, “the building is in a significant state of disrepair,” the report states. “ Lack of signage, and adjacent private property concerns can make accessing the nearby trails challenging. If renovated, this site could host an information hub for the South Coast. There is little information currently for visitors accessing Big Sur from the south. There are also few facilities (toilets, trash cans, camping).”While he noted visitor amenities are by themselves not a bad thing, Foster points out that there are many other factors to consider when proposing such plans: “I say that all the time a lot of these agencies, nobody’s looking long-term into where we’re going to go,” he said. “Say we have 5 to 6 million , we’re going to double that again in 10 to 20 years? I think they’re a little bit late. What happened on dispersed camping on the south coast, that was all driven by social media and people posting on YouTube. It kind of went viral. “I know they’re planning for the future, but I don’t think anybody really knows what it’ll look like here with sea level rising and bigger winter storms.”Another big example of the plan’s miscalculations, according to Foster, is in its proposed management of Bixby Bridge and the surrounding areas. Foster recently gained notoriety when a video he shot of a traffic quagmire near and on Bixby Bridge over Memorial Day weekend went viral. But the video, he said, illustrates a bigger problem facing the region today and in the future — one that the new plan, he said, at least attempts to address. To help mitigate visits to Bixby Bridge and avoid gridlock like on this past Memorial Day weekend, the plan proposes to use the nearby Brazil Ranch as a staging area for a shuttle system. See more coverage of top Central Coast stories here | Download our app | Download Very Local
MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. —
A sweeping new proposal for how the U.S. Forest Service envisions managing the millions who visit Big Sur each year has both garnered support and raised concern among those who call the densely forested yet sparsely populated region home.
The suggestions within the report include some radical departures from the area’s current policies. Most notably, there could be a reservation system for popular spots like the Pine Ridge Trail and Pfeiffer Beach.
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“We’re seeing year-over-year sizable increases of visitors to Big Sur, and we don’t have the carrying capacity to accommodate that level,” Los Padres National Forest spokesperson Andrew Madsen told SFGATE on Tuesday. “Whether it’s a reservation system to implement at trailheads or recreation sites … what the plan did is establish some baselines we can operate off of.”
Following three years of studies and public outreach, the Los Padres National Forest Monterey Ranger District released a draft of the document, the Coastal Zone Visitor Use Management Strategy, in late April.
The plan is the result of the forest service’s attempt to address “challenges of managing visitor use to minimize impacts to resources and infrastructure while maintaining recreation opportunities and access,” according to the report’s summary.
“There was enormous public input both from residents in Big Sur, along with key partners and residential interest groups,” Madsen continued, noting he was just hours away from hosting a virtual public meeting Tuesday evening to get public feedback on the report. “We will continue to work with the community and interested members of the public and interest groups, so we can have a sustainable level of recreation use.”
Madsen anticipated a lot of discussion over a proposed reservation system for cars camping along public roads, including unpaved roads and pullouts in the south coast region of Big Sur, where car campers and day visitors have traditionally enjoyed spontaneous and unimpeded access.
“The south coast roads, Plaskett Ridge Road, Los Burros [Road], over [early] COVID, there was an explosion of camping all over social media,” Madsen explained. “It’s free car camping, but you’re not going to have a bathroom, no trash receptacles, no campfires. Maybe we need a reservation system there, where we allow 15 vehicles [to] come up for a three days, two nights kind of thing and have a reservation. Those are all things that would be on the table.”
The pilot “designated dispersed” camping program would potentially help track the number of visitors to certain spots in the region, meet their needs and help mitigate the effects of human use, Madsen said.
The program would also potentially ease the burden on areas that are “experiencing unprecedented visitor use, resulting in traffic congestion, and expanding dispersed camping that is becoming concentrated on previously undisturbed areas,” the study said. “This is resulting in increased fire risk, human waste and litter issues, deteriorated road conditions, offroad vehicle use and associated resource impacts, and conflicts with local landowners.”
Artfully implementing these strategies, while helping locals navigate everyday life here, is a balance that is admittedly “difficult to strike,” said Marcus Foster, co-founder and co-chairperson of the group Keep Big Sur Wild. The group has tasked itself with helping the region stick as closely as possible to the 1986 Big Sur Coast Land Use Plan.
Foster said he and his organization have collaborated and provided input to the Forest Service on the plan. At the same time, “we do have some issues with it,” he told SFGATE on Sunday.
“From the beginning, we always felt the high-impacted and high visitor use areas have a need for reservation systems,” he said, pointing to the success of similar systems in Hawaii. “The reservation side of this plan is appropriate. I think you’re seeing that in other locations, the [reservation system for the] Napali Coast in Hawaii is an example of something that works.”
A reservation system would positively impact most residents who live near the most frequented spots. Those who live along Sycamore Canyon Road on the way down to Pfeiffer Beach are “losing their minds,” Foster continued. “The Forest Service is figuring out carrying capacity. Pfeiffer Beach is one example. There is always a big issue — just the popularity of that beach with the limited parking.”
But Foster said the group has concerns over other aspects of the plan: “There are some things in this plan: increasing infrastructure, enhancing accessibility, promoting sustainable recreational practices, that are all very well-intentioned, but they’ll attract visitors to the area,” he said. “... Shuttles, visitors’ centers, restrooms and you know basically just increasing parking lots in some areas. In our opinion, it kind of appears to support increased visitation that could benefit commercial interests.”
One seemingly innocuous example of this would be the proposed conversion of the existing ranger station at Salmon Creek and state Route 1 into a visitor center. Built in 1932, “the building is in a significant state of disrepair,” the report states. “ Lack of signage, and adjacent private property concerns can make accessing the nearby trails challenging. If renovated, this site could host an information hub for the South Coast. There is little information currently for visitors accessing Big Sur from the south. There are also few facilities (toilets, trash cans, camping).”
While he noted visitor amenities are by themselves not a bad thing, Foster points out that there are many other factors to consider when proposing such plans: “I say that all the time a lot of these agencies, nobody’s looking long-term into where we’re going to go,” he said. “Say we have 5 to 6 million [visitors a year], we’re going to double that again in 10 to 20 years? I think they’re a little bit late. What happened on dispersed camping on the south coast, that was all driven by social media and people posting on YouTube. It kind of went viral.
“I know they’re planning for the future, but I don’t think anybody really knows what it’ll look like here with sea level rising and bigger winter storms.”
Another big example of the plan’s miscalculations, according to Foster, is in its proposed management of Bixby Bridge and the surrounding areas.
Foster recently gained notoriety when a video he shot of a traffic quagmire near and on Bixby Bridge over Memorial Day weekend went viral. But the video, he said, illustrates a bigger problem facing the region today and in the future — one that the new plan, he said, at least attempts to address.
To help mitigate visits to Bixby Bridge and avoid gridlock like on this past Memorial Day weekend, the plan proposes to use the nearby Brazil Ranch as a staging area for a shuttle system.
See more coverage of top Central Coast stories here | Download our app | Download Very Local
