Where the Sierra Nevada Rises from the Sea: The Big Sur Coast

Sierra: "A rugged range of mountains having an irregular or jagged profile, like a saw blade"

Sierra Nevada: A mountain range in California with the shape of a tilted block, composed largely of granitic and metamorphic rock (from the Spanish "snowy saw-tooth range").

The Sierra Nevada? Rising out of the sea? What's that about? The Sierra Nevada, California's well-known mountain range with Yosemite and all that is 80 or 90 miles away to the east, across the Great Valley. We are at the beach, so why are we talking about the Sierra Nevada?

You can look at the mountains of Big Sur (the Grande South!) as being a sierra in the sense of being quite rugged. Our location today, Limekiln State Park, is located along the Big Sur Coast north of San Simeon. The mountains here have never been glaciated, but the peaks above the park seem to be rather inaccessible. And they rise nearly a mile out of the surf (nearby Cone Peak is 5,155 feet high and only a little over two miles from the coastline). That certainly makes it a "sierra". But the Sierra Nevada?

The shoreline cliffs don't seem to recall the Sierra Nevada. The cliffs are composed of metamorphic basalt and graywacke sandstone of the Franciscan Complex, rocks that formed in the trench of a subduction zone that was active up until a few tens of millions of years ago

It's when you look at the boulders in the creek at Limekiln that you start to realize that there is a different sort of connection to the actual Sierra Nevada that lies so far to the east.

The boulders of Limekiln Creek are composed of granitic and metamorphic rocks that look a great deal like the rocks found in the southern Sierra Nevada and adjacent Mojave Desert. They are in fact the same rocks. The rocks are way out of place, a hundred miles or more from where they originated. But they are the rocks of the Sierra Nevada, and as such, the Santa Lucia Range, rising out of the Pacific Ocean, can literally be considered a part of the Sierra Nevada..

As to how they got here in Central California, one need look no further than California's favorite fault, the San Andreas.

The crustal slab of granitic and metamorphic rocks of the Big Sur country is called the Salinian Block, and as you can see on the map below the block lies west of the San Andreas (granitic rocks of the Sierra and Salinia are shown in red on the map below). For the last 28 million years or so, the San Andreas has been shifting at a rate of a few inches a year. Inches multiplied by millions of years translates to great distances of offset, at least 195 miles, and possibly more.

Limekiln State Park has a lot going for it these days. It is a second-growth redwood forest that has recovered much of its original beauty. The forest was originally cut down not so much for the lumber, but as the fuel for the lime kilns.

The kilns rise out of the forest like bizarre temples or alien landing beacons. They were built to process marble into lime for construction material, and were active from 1887 to 1890. After the marble was used up, the kilns were abandoned, and the forest slowly grew back. In the 1980s, a private landowner wanted to log the forest again, but many Big Sur aficionados objected and in 1994 Limekiln became a state park. The park has faced problems in its short existence, including a fire in 2008, and closure by the state in 2012 due to the budget crisis.

The park is back, though, and it is a pleasant place to visit. There is a modest campground with maybe two dozen sites with some sites near the beach and others up in the canyon among the redwood trees. It has a half-mile trail to the lime kilns, and a short spur trail to one of the more unusual looking waterfalls to be seen anywhere, 100-foot tall Limekiln Falls. The odd cone-shaped appearance of the fall results from the accumulation of calcium carbonate deposits dissolved from the mountains upstream.

This is the first stop on our exploration of the Central California coast, the most beautiful shoreline in the world (read the intro here if you want to argue the point!)

The Other California: Limekiln, Part 3 - A Park Without a Friend

I'm heartbroken.

Limekiln State Park is closing. As soon as next month, you will not be able to visit this precious place. For the lack of $22 million dollars, 70 of California's state parks will be closing down. That's an average of just over $300,000 per park. The math is appalling: a single penny from each resident of California could keep Limekiln State Park open. A mere 70 cents or so from each resident could keep all 70 parks open. But our legislature couldn't do it. Our legislature, because of a minority party so intent on never raising taxes for any reason at all, would not even let the people of California choose for themselves whether to keep the parks through the referendum process. I am ashamed of this legislature, and I am ashamed that I am represented by a senator and an assemblyperson who are part of the Republican party.

What is it worth to these people in the legislature to make sure their rich benefactors don't pay a few extra dollars in taxes? Is it truly so important to them that they would destroy the things that can make California a livable place?  The education system of our state? The safety net for the most vulnerable of our citizens, the poor, the sick, the infirm? Clean air and water? The careers of teachers, nurses, police and firefighters? I'm heartbroken and angry.

There are some things you can do for the parks. Assembly Bill 42 has passed the state legislature and is headed to Governor Brown's office. It will allow partnerships with non-profit organizations to keep some parks open. A few of them anyway; you can sign a petition here asking Brown to sign the bill. You can also support the California State Parks Foundation. They've been doing good work.

I fear that Limekiln is a park without friends. There are certainly people who love the park (including some recent commenters), but it doesn't sit next to any urban centers where volunteers can easily donate their time. It's isolated and wild, a feature that makes it a wonderful place to explore, but it doesn't get enough visitors to support a "Limekiln State Park Foundation" as far as I know. No, I think this park will be simply swept away for budget considerations, and we will all be poorer for it.

And a penny from everyone was all that it needed....

The Other California: Limekiln State Park, Part 2 - What lies upstream?

Does anyone see the gnome climbing out of the fallen log?

The Other California is my on-again/off-again long running series on the fascinating corners of California that don't always make onto the postcards. The last post concerned a little-known state park on the Big Sur Coast, Limekiln State Park. We had a look at the small bouldery beach under a beautiful bridge on Highway One. We ended up wondering what lay upstream.

The first thing one notices is the redwood forest just a few yards upstream, and the park campground. The redwood grove here is one of the southernmost of the species, and according to some sources may even be a distinct subspecies. Many of the trees were cut in the 1880s (see below), but the forest has recovered nicely, and the campground is in a wonderfully scenic setting among tall trees and a loud babbling creek. Some areas of the park were damaged in the Chalk Fire of 2008.

The campground is decidedly different than most state park campgrounds. Space is at a premium, and sites are very close to each other as if planners were trying to stuff as many spaces as possible in the limited flat ground. This is a clue to the heritage of the park; it was once privately owned (one hiking guide calls it "Big Sur funky"). Limekiln only became a state park in 1995.

We had a sweet little experience on our visit. We were foolishly vagabonding, hoping to catch an empty camping spot on the Big Sur Coast...in the summer. Talk about a hopeless quest! The hosts at the camps farther south laughed when we asked about open spaces or cancellations. The young man at the Limekiln station looked at our small car, and suggested we check campsite 26 1/2, a campsite that doesn't actually exist, much like Harry Potter's King's Cross train station gate 9 3/4. There was no parking, and barely enough space for the Taj MaHayes tent, but it worked and we had a delightful night. Such a crowded campground has a potential for much noise and mayhem, but the night was quiet, and one of the darkest I can ever remember experiencing. During a late-night stroll, the only light in the whole camp was a single candle on a table, and the dim light flickered mysteriously in the trees up above.

As a new state park, the hiking system is not highly developed, but the trails are quite pleasant to explore. One trail follows the West Fork of Limekiln Creek to the limekilns. The park preserves exposures of Mesozoic granitic rocks and older metamorphic rocks, including marble. Marble is metamorphic limestone, which is an important component of concrete and cement. It must be heated to become lime, and that is what the limekilns are all about.

For three years starting in 1887, a group of kilns used locally cut redwoods to bake the limestone, and the lime was transported to the beach. Ships picked up the barrels of lime for use in Monterey and other nearby towns.

I was expecting brick kilns, like those I have seen in Death Valley and the Owens Valley, but these kilns were made of iron. They are slowly being reclaimed by the forest. There are even redwoods and ferns sprouting on the roof of the ovens. The structures were just a bit eerie to me.

Another trail rises gently through Hare Creek. The water was sparklingly clear, and there was plenty of it, despite the late August date. The deep blue pools were inviting.

I've saved the best for last. Off the Kiln trail is a side trail to Limekiln Falls. It's one of California's unique treasures. The falls are about 100 feet high, and cascade down a cone-shaped edifice that is different than the usual cliffs found in the state. Flowing through the marble, the upstream portion of the creek picks up calcium carbonate (the mineral calcite), and some of the mineral precipitates out of the water while evaporating on the flight down the falls. I'm guessing that it is a similar phenomena that has produced the beautiful Havasu Falls in Grand Canyon.

The falls are one of the prettiest sights I've seen this summer. So, here is a little known state park that contains a beautiful waterfall, an inspiring redwood grove that is one of the southernmost in the world, a world-class beach, interesting metamorphic and plutonic rocks, and which includes a pleasant creek and cozy little campground. Doesn't it sound like a wonderful place to visit?

Well, you can't. Not anymore. As early as this October, Limekiln State Park will no longer be accessible to any of you. Find out why in the next post...

The Other California: Limekiln State Park, Part 1

What is the Other California? It's been a little while since I've posted on the subject, so here's what it is: an exploration of the lesser known places of our beautiful state, the places that you don't find on the postcards all that often; the places you visit when you've checked off that list of must-see spots like Yosemite or Death Valley. In today's post, we are taking a look at an interesting little beach in the southern part of the Big Sur Coast country: Limekiln State Park.

It's easy to miss while winding down the highway; focus too much on getting to the famous parks at the north end of Highway 1, and you might not see the turnoff at all. There is barely any parking available, so the beach is uncrowded. It's different from a lot of beaches in California; it has a good-sized creek that has littered the beach with large boulders of very attractive metamorphic and plutonic rocks. Does anyone see a face in the cliff?

Despite the late August visit, there was a lot of water for a central California River. A lot of them are dry by now. The mountains upstream reach a mile above sea level, and they catch a lot of rainfall. Enough sinks into the ground that springs keep the river flowing year-round. The babbling brook contrasts nicely with the crashing waves. I had a delightful time looking at chunks of gneiss, schist, marble, and granitic rock.

Highway 1 passes the park on a high bridge. Looking upstream, we can see that there might be a bit more to this park than a beach. For one thing, why in the world do they call it 'Limekiln'? What secrets lie up the the canyon? Keep an eye out for part 2!