When the L.A. Times recently ran a story about traveling Big Sur on a budget, they had some great suggestions, but I didn’t think they went low budget enough.
For instance they mentioned Treebones Resort, suggesting that for $120/night, you bring your own bedding and stay in one of their yurts. But they didn’t mention that for $95/night, you can bring your own tent and commune even more directly with that iconic Big Sur coastline.
"Last night, when we got back to gather some stuff to take a shower, our tent was literally about to be blown off the cliff. The only thing keeping it down was a bag of rocks," said a camper named Stella.
As Stella and her boyfriend Joe now know, budget travel in Big Sur can be an adventure in vulnerability. At Treebones, up above Highway 1 along the southern stretch of the Big Sur coast, you’re basically living inside a cloud, where surprising weather systems are constantly moving through.
Perching lightly on the land is what the owners John Handy, a former toy designer, and his wife Corinne, had in mind when they dreamt up Treebones. Handy and I sit in the resort's circular lodge surrounded by a colony of terraced yurts that look like giant lily pads.
"We bought this property 25 years ago. We didn’t want to tear it all down and flatten it out and build a bunch of concrete foundations," said Handy. "Whatever we wanted to build was more like animal homes where they don’t tear the tree down they build around it."
Rustic Sleeping
Nothing quite says “animal home” like their budget accommodation the “Human Nest”.
British tourist Alana Clark leads me up a ladder, where we disappear into a post apocalyptic-looking sphere of woven twigs. Sinking onto its cushioned floor, we sit talking as large droplets of condensation pelt our heads. It's sort of like we’re in a tunnel of twigs.
"It’s beautiful. We chose the nest because it’s quite romantic," said Clark. "You’re just free listening to birds, listening to elephant seals...you can hear them all night."
Clark and her husband, who have been traveling by motorbike, spent the night burrowed inside their sleeping bags, occasionally sticking their heads out for gulps of air.
If the ecological aspects of eco-tourism get to be too much, you can always escape to the resort’s lodge where there’s a cozy fireplace, a restaurant that grows its own salads, and a sushi bar. All of it powered by micro generators.
A Great Place To Escape
"There’s no power, there’s no utilities, there’s no government period in Big Sur. Like the old West. We really run it ourselves," said Handy.
Adding to the feeling of being cut off is the fact that there’s pretty much no cell phone or Internet anywhere along the Big Sur coast, part of what makes it such an appealing destination for criminals on the run.
When I checked into the second stop on my itinerary, LimeKiln, a $35/night state campground just up the road from Treebones, there was a rumor was circulating that a felon had just been through days earlier. Campground manager, Bob Eden, a former correctional officer, couldn’t verify, but said it happens.
"We had a guy who started a crime spree up in the Santa Cruz area and he actually made it down here," said Eden. "There were so many sightings, people coming up with, 'oh I think I saw him, he almost got me.' Well he was in the area but he wasn’t in 50 places at one time. That was quite a time for two weeks or so."
For all I knew this possible violent offender had stayed in my very camp site and looked out at this same view. A picture perfect creek suitable for fairies with shafts of religious looking light filtering down from the redwoods. What would be going through a criminal’s mind looking at this?
Much as I tried to get myself worked up, I couldn’t muster up the kind of fear I feel at home watching the news. The only broadcast signals reaching me now seemed to be coming from redwood trees.
Preserving The Wild West
There’s a beach at the front of LimeKiln under one of those tall Big Sur bridges. The teenagers staying in the campsite next to mine are jumping off a big rock into the water.
Ships once pulled into this cove and loaded up heaps of powdered limestone that were taken north and mixed into the cement that built the original San Francisco that crumbled in the 1906 earthquake.
"Back in the late 1800s, someone discovered limestone up here in this canyon, and since there was an abundance of firewood, i.e., the redwood trees, they built a bunch of kilns in front of the cliffs and they basically ran this canyon out of its resources by 1891," said Eden.
These days, Big Sur’s resources are protected. In part, by the some of the spiritual retreat centers that own large swaths of its land. Four times a year they get together to talk about how to protect it. Among them is New Camaldoli, a Benedictine monastery high atop a peak in an area called Lucia, where the monastery sits on 880 acres of land.
Father Cyprian is the pryor.
"First thing we hold in common is the land. And our main thrust is to talk about how to care for the land. If the Israelis and Palestinians could actually start to talk about how to care for their land together that’d be a whole different conversation, instead of talking about the conflict between Judaism and Islam or talking about their different ethnic groups. They might want to talk about what kind of effect are these developments having on the desert land they live on and the lack of water that everyone’s going to suffer from, that would be a very interesting place to start."
If you don’t mind sleeping on a hard twin bed beneath a crucifix and you’re fine with being silent —for a donation of $115 — you can stay in one of New Camaldoli’s hermitage rooms. That price includes a private yard with a spectacular view, meals you may or may not want to eat, and three masses a day.
New Camaldoli has it's roots in a tradition that goes back to the 11th century, when hermits living in the wilderness of Central Italy banded together and formed a community.
Father Cyprian says that without guidance, too much solitude in the wilderness can go the wrong way. I tell him that Charles Manson used to hide out in Lucia.
"Oh, I didn’t know that! Thank you for that information," said Cyprian. "Somehow that’s it, that’s the whole contradiction of the wilderness. It’s supposed to be filled with wild beasts in the sense of demons that you wrestle with. That’s what the early monks did, they were wrestling with demons."
Though I didn’t hear from God while I was at New Camaldoli, this Canadian family of ukulele players singing to me the night before at LimeKiln came pretty close. Those high budget travelers, in their pricey rectangular hotels, have no idea what they’re missing out on.