Professor Gary Griggs goes back to 1962. Since then it has rained a lot, a factor of great relevance in his story about the first time he traveled through Big Sur, that iconic stretch of California Route 1 with priceless views of the Pacific while driving next to the cliff.
“It was kind of an adventure. You would take that wild road that runs along the coast and maybe you would see another car every half hour,” recalls this professor in Oceanography at the University of California in Santa Cruz and an expert in coastal erosion with 13 books on the subject in which he appears as the author or co-author.
In the zoom interview he laughs, perhaps out of nostalgia, when he remembers that he was a university student when he made his debut on that trip, in his old Volkswagen van.
Every time I faced a hill I went slower and slower. “You greeted those who came from the other side. It felt like you were driving to Alaska,” he says. “Today it is very different, there are tourist buses and recreational vehicles (motorhomes), but they are still at the mercy of the climate and geology,” she maintains.
Not only are they still at their mercy, but it has been made much more complicated by the impact of climate change and the so-called atmospheric rivers, which cause torrential showers of more than two cubic meters of water per year that make the route more vulnerable. The constant fires also destroy vegetation and make the soil more exposed to rain, which means more debris and mudflows.
Meteorological studies show that precipitation is approximately 10% heavier than it has been historically.
Every other day sections are also cut or passage is only allowed alternately once or twice a day due to frequent landslides when storms repeatedly intensify.
A recent downpour caused pieces of that road to collapse into the ocean. This forced evacuations and impeded traffic in the area near the Rocky Creek bridge. It is just another example of the constant pace of blockages and interruptions that this highway suffers.
The repair for the Rocky Creek landslide was still underway this week and traffic was regulated.
Transit through Big Sur, which from a road of impossible construction became a myth of the pop era, is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish. “I call it a wicked problem that is impossible to solve,” says Griggs.
“We are going to be permanently fixing this and all the California Department of Transportation does is put band-aids on it,” he clarifies.
That image that Professor Griggs treasures from 1962 is the same one that attracted so many artists who sought beauty and isolation. “This place is so overwhelmingly large that it engenders a humility and reverence not often found in Americans,” wrote Henry Miller, well versed in this territory. “Big Sur has its own climate and its own character,” he insisted regarding the route that connects Los Angeles and San Francisco.
This is another time. Instagramization and selfie culture have helped drive an overwhelming increase in tourists along its 33 bridges and their postcard views from which to spot whales and lions and elephant seals, without forgetting the surroundings.
“The massive popularity of Big Sur is damaging its scenic qualities and natural beauty,” according to a 2020 report prepared by the state government on this highway.
“Everything works against Route 1,” says Griggs.
There was nothing to recommend that the route run through there, where two tectonic plates meet, at the edge of the continent, with very steep slopes and very unstable stone with a mixture of granite, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Despite everything, he moved forward in that decade of the 1930s. In the midst of the depression, the Roosevelt administration offered something to be proud of.
So from its origins it posed obstacles. But geology continues to evolve.
Is it worth spending to cover holes? “Of course we have to keep it alive,” stresses state senator John Laird. No one is willing to close it, Griggs confesses. Although it is not a place where many people live, nor that there are many businesses, Big Sur is a hallmark.
Although there are plans to build another highway in the interior, the professor adds that on that route you can see “lettuce, asparagus and tomatoes, but not Big Sur.” Faced with the money that he expects to repair, he proposes that a toll be paid.
More than geology and investment, Griggs is surprised by humanity, the one that tries to make the road at full speed. He imagines driving around in a convertible, without the top, enjoying the horizon.
“If someone asks me whether time or money, I choose time. You can get money, but time doesn’t go back.”