2025 Van Tour of the United States: San Simeon California
The beach near San Simeon
The next leg of our van odyssey took us to San Simeon and Hearst Castle. Getting there was more difficult than normal as a landslide, in January 2023, closed Highway 1 between Big Sur and San Simeon forcing us to backtrack from Big Sur to Monterey and then Salinas, to access Highway 101 south to Paso Robles, then west to the coast, and north on Highway 1 to San Simeon State Park. The slide, which interdicted the coast highway, turned an 80-mile drive into a 180 mile journey.
John Steinbeck Truck & Camper from his book "Travels with Charlie"
The detour gave us the opportunity to visit the John Steinbeck
Museum in Salinas California. The
Citizens of Salinas are rightfully proud of their native son. He was a prolific writer who realistically
portrayed the struggles, loneliness, social isolation and violence that
accompanied the Great Depression. During World War 2 he served as a War
Correspondent who flew on bomber missions and witnessed firsthand the ground
war and liberation of Europe. Following
the publication of East of Eden, he switched from fiction to non-fiction and
continued to author popular books until his sudden death in 1968.
As we continued south, we passed Camp Roberts, one of the
largest Army Bases in the continental US.
I often trained there during my tenure as a Field Artillery
Officer.
Late in the afternoon, we arrived at our campsite in
Hearst/San Simeon State Park. Walking
the campground, we observed a posting, on the camp bulletin board, about a
lecture on Marine Sanctuaries to be presented that evening at the Hearst Castle
Visitors Center. This was nearby so we
returned to the van and drove to a very interesting lecture on NOAA’s Marine
Sanctuaries, especially those along the Pacific Coast. Their goal is to ensure that the ecology of
the protected areas continues to flourish and they work with commercial interests
to insure their work inside the sanctuaries does no long term harm.
Juvenile Elephant Seals prior to the start of their 13,000 mile Alaskan Roundtrip
The shear volume of attractions on the central coast forced
us to choose a subset that we could visit and enjoy during our one full day in
the vicinity of San Simeon. We selected viewing
the elephant seal rookery, hiking the perimeter of San Simeon Cove, and stopping
at the Hearst Castle Visitors Center.
A photo taken of us by a nice young gal who then kindly shared with us.
There are a series of sandy beaches just north of San Simeon
on which the local population of juvenile elephant seals gather. Most of the adults had already begun their
trek north to the Aleutian Islands for the summer. 28 days after birth the juveniles are on
their own and have grown from ~65 pounds to nearly 300 pounds from a diet of
their mother’s milk. Must be a high
potency diet! Their migration north
usually begins in May, two months after the adults have departed. Approximately 50% will survive the 13,000
mile round trip to Alaska as they face hazards from predators higher on the
food chain.
We enjoyed visiting San Simeon Cove. We have anchored there twice on journeys along the California coast. This trip we enjoyed hiking the perimeter of the cove which for mariners provides a protected anchorage from all but southerly winds.
We visited San Simeon on our trawler Patience during a trip from San Francisco Bay to the Channel Islands several years ago.
Horse in field
We parked near the General Store and old Warehouse buildings. To our delight, we discovered the store had a great deli. The Tri-Tip Sandwich was excellent. After lunch we moved the van to the State Park Day Use Parking Lot and did a round-trip hike to the end of the spit of land which wraps around the cove, creating a calm and safe anchorage, which has provided shelter to mariners since the Spanish originally settled this area. The first half of the hike was in the sand of the crescent shaped beach located just below the warehouses and general store from the 1800’s.
Also present were Mediterranean style beach
homes built at the same time as Hearst Castle.
No doubt providing a complimentary beach experience. The hike then
transitioned uphill into eucalyptus and cypress trees along the top of the
bluff which separated the cove from the Pacific Ocean. All the vegetation was quite healthy as a wet
spring seemed to most agreeable to lush growth.
Below the bluff were kelp forests and tidal pools. Opportunities for further exploration
appeared in every direction.
Our final stop was at the Hearst Castle visitor center just prior to
closing time. We had time to tour the
center and enjoy the displays about how the Hearst family acquired the land and
built the castle. We also viewed the 40-minute
film with similar content.
Beth decided she needed one more hike before calling it a
day, so she hiked within Fiscalini Ranch Preserve located between Cambria and
the ocean. Upon her return, we relocated the van to Moonstone Beach where we
parked, prepared, and enjoyed a delicious spaghetti dinner while watching the sun set
over a restive ocean, its waves crashing non-stop against the western shore of North
America.
Additional Information
- Elephant Seals
- San Simeon
- West Coast Marine Sanctuaries
- An 1834 voyage to California's Central Coast: Two Years before the Mast
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