<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/285597026″>(not) Big (enough) Sur</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user5454167″>Tim Huntington</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
A short film about overtourism on the central coast of California.
August 2018
Beautifully done….one does not need words to see what is happening – just poetry. Thank you Tim
Agreed. I think the LACK of words contributes to the effectiveness of this video – that and the music.
https://bigsurkate.blog
Beautifully done! This summer it hit me that we’re heading in much the same direction. Our favorite trail down to the beach had human excrement in the middle of the path with toilet paper strewn all over. Some folks just have no class whatsoever. In many ways, I’m rather glad to be reaching my “expiration date” and won’t have to see where all this takes us. Kudos to you and the others fighting to preserve any of the beauty that is being spoiled.
wow – nice. But sad. Hope my heart doesn’t break when I finally get back there…
It is difficult to watch…
https://bigsurkate.blog
They say “Leave No Trace” but your foot prints … too many foot prints…😥
Pretty much says it all without words. Nicely done.
Heart taking
Kate, same old pack of swarming, hiking, & parking nomads ignoring signs around them on trails and roads!
Beautifully done video. I knew what was coming… As a life-long local, I have only been to Big Sur twice since the bridge repair. Its just not the same experience anymore. I hate to add to the traffic and crowds. Im glad for the businesses, as they can recoup from the closures. I wish for a balance and grace to befall all who venture there – to the Edge of Heaven.
This video was beautifully done and does a great job of portraying the immense increase of tourism in our area! Kudos to Tim for this video and I hope people start realizing, sooner rather than later, the impact that this is having on our environment … it just breaks my heart …
Shut the road down and make it thru hike only, if you want to see the best nature has to offer, make the long term investment in your health, take the risk and put in the effort to hike the 90 miles, this will bring only people that care enough for themselves to respect and care about nature.
But that will never happen, since all the camp stores and campgrounds are full of garbage and big money wants glamping for the low effort wealthy human.
Leave your baggage, find your feet and recognize ‘all the moments are borrowed and every step outdoors opens into the eternal now.’
https://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/backcountry-basics/leave-no-trace/
Yes, I agree
I visit every other year. There are many of us “tourists” who are respectful and want to be able to come back to the area as visitors who appreciate the area and the locals who have to live with the influx. I get it. I live in the “Berkshires” in New England. Should I be able to tell people that they cannot share in the beauty of my local hometown? That they are not allowed to vacation “here”.? People do stupid things. People can be disrespectful. However, we should also be celebrating the fact that people want to observe and share in the beauty of nature and care–that people want to take their families hiking and out into nature instead of to another theme park–that the area in which you are privileged to live in is an area that others yearn to see—we are all responsible to educate others in acceptable behaviors when we see negligence and ignorance. I hope people keep going to Big Sur. I hope the locals keep a watchful eye out. I hope that our government never strips away anymore of these beautiful destinations. Lets all agree to agree to share in the beauty that our country has to offer before we lose it for other reasons.
He did this so well…
I love the sentiment, John.
https://bigsurkate.blog
Looks like a National Park is in our future. If we don’t address the obvious infrastructure problems ourselves the powers in faraway capitols will. Seems to me, however, that the total impacts of the tourists are minor compared to the less obvious impacts of the many expanding villas, resorts and estates along the highway. Peek over the high fences sometime. These are not as obvious to us as the packed tourist-foot-eroded turnouts. However these vast constructions and greenswards seem better suited to elsewhere than Big Sur which is purported to be about rural homesteaders, pristine beauty and backcountry wanderers.
Kate, thank you for encouraging discussion.
You are welcome, Hawkwatcher.
https://bigsurkate.blog
Due to the heavy tourist flow and safety concerns, Parks Management is now controlling traffic on sycamore canyon road down to Pfeiffer Beach with a new shuttle service option available. Could a similar model be applied to Highway one to the north and south? Maybe…
You could start by enforcing a daily tourist vehicle allowance that is augmented by multiple shuttle service options at either end (Carmel and Ragged point). Once the allowance max is hit, highway one is closed to tourist vehicles and only open to shuttles, service vehicles, and locals the rest of the day via a toll booth. The north and south entrance booths would communicate the daily totals and simultaneously shut down. Signs could alert tourists to the road status or via the caltrans website. It could even be toll-free if it were multi-agency funded (Monterey County, and state CHP, CalTrans, State parks, and federal agencies USFS and NOAA). The cost to run this would be a drop in the bucket as compared to what Caltrans spends fixing highway one annually.
Similar to what USFS has done at Sycamore canyon, CalTrans (with help from other agencies) could even contract this out to a private company to operate.
Moving forward, we must explore ways to manage the tourist impacts in order to preserve the beauty that is, Big Sur.
But how do you tell the difference between a tourist, former resident, non-resident family member of a resident, guest of resident, if you want to put in controls? Will not be as easy as it sounds. Not to mention road is paid for by taxes paid by all CA and for that matter US residents. I remember complaints about tourists/hippies back in the 60’s.
It seems that concerns about tourist swarms is becoming a ‘thing’: http://www.spiegel.de/international/paradise-lost-tourists-are-destroying-the-places-they-love-a-1223502.html
(even Spiegel is on it!) 😀
That one is up tomorrow, Gunta…
https://bigsurkate.blog