This Road is #1!

I recently drove Highway 1 in California, from Morro Bay to the Oregon border. I have got to say, hats off to the California Department of Transportation. Engineering this road was quite a feat, but it seems to me maintaining it is even more amazing.

Highway 1 is definitely one of the most beautiful drives in the country, but its very existence is quite precarious. And after a stormy winter like this one….

In a lot of places it was a one lane road, where part of the road was devastated. There were four major closures on the highway, where both lanes were damaged too badly for any kind of an easy fix. If you saw where this road goes, you would be amazed that it is only four places.

Highway One hugs the coast, a fine line between the cliffs and the sea. It travels through an incredibly dynamic landscape, a land in flux.

The San Andreas Fault runs here. This part of California is trying to move to Alaska! And tectonics, although a big game-changer, is not the major force affecting this road. It’s erosion. Water.

Think about it. Steep cliffs, unconsolidated soils, a heck of a lot of rain. That means mudslides. Practically everywhere, all that water and soil is trying to take a trip to the beach. Hills are slumping, attempting to erase the road, a horizontal ribbon in this vertical landscape. Not only mudslides. Rock slides, too.

The mudslides are countless, and responsible for most of the closures, but the force that really amazed me was water coming from the other direction. The sea. Waves crashing against the cliffs. Powerful. Constant. Relentless. It’s truly awe-inspiring. Eating away the ground from underneath the highway continuously, little by little. The wild and mighty Pacific.

In some places where the road is down to one lane, you can see there is nothing left where the other lane once ran. It is amazing to me that this road still exists at all.

Highway 1 is an incredible road, one of the most beautiful and craziest roads you will ever travel. Do travel it. Soon, while you still can.