Category: Overuse

And yet ANOTHER bicycle event

Day 1 (Oct 13th) is Monterey to Big Sur and Day 2 (Oct 14th) is Big Sur to Paso Robles:

This weekend, the Challenged Athletes Foundation is presenting a 600-plus mile bike ride along the California coast to raise money for a great cause.

As part of CAF’s 25th anniversary celebration, the 2018 Million Dollar Challenge is the most inclusive ride yet. The 600+ mile cycling event takes place from October 13, 2018 – October 19, 2018 along the California coast. Challenged athletes and supporter cyclists participating in the event’s entirety begin their journey in Monterey and ride for one week to finish in San Diego. Participants help to raise over a million dollars together for CAF’s mission of supporting people with physical challenges, so they can pursue active lifestyles through physical fitness and competitive athletics.

Cal Trans & Graffiti

Friday, Suzana Cruz, Cal Trans PIO, sent me the following. I condensed it, slightly. She sent it in response to my blog post about the graffiti, which by the time they saw my post and went to  take care of it, Marcus already had. Cal Trans is concerned about us taking care of it ourselves, due to the traffic danger involved, so requests we notify them at the link below, or tell your local friendly Cal Trans worker, who can pass it on.

“We appreciate that locals take pride in their community as do all our crews that work there and our whole Caltrans family;  we love the area and do get very upset by the way it gets treated, but our Mtce. Dept. would  rather follow the existing protocol and have its employees do the job they are paid to do and take care of these issues.

We have an existing and efficient Customer (Mtce) Service Request CSR/MSR system in place, so when issues, such as this one take place, you and your followers have a way of reporting this kind of incident so we can properly track, record and handle it. This also deters folks from taking matters into their own hands when it comes to an issue that pertains to State property….The last thing we want is for someone, especially a member of the public, to get hurt.

Thanks for understanding, not taking it the wrong way, but rather safety-minded, and for helping me pass this link/info. (below) along and encouraging your followers to use it.”

https://csr.dot.ca.gov/

 

One little Big Sur Hummingbird…

Remember this from Monday?

Look at it by Tuesday –

Thank you, hummingbird! (Aka Marcus Foster) Show the love! Share the love! BE the love!

The Story of the Hummingbird

A reader sent me this story once, forgive me, but I’ve forgotten who. I think it was during the Soberanes Fire, and she told me I was the hummingbird. I felt honored. We are all the hummingbird, or can be. Here it is:

The Story of the Hummingbird

One day a terrible fire broke out in a forest – a huge woodlands was suddenly engulfed by a raging wild fire. Frightened, all the animals fled their homes and ran out of the forest. As they came to the edge of a stream they stopped to watch the fire and they were feeling very discouraged and powerless. They were all bemoaning the destruction of their homes. Every one of them thought there was nothing they could do about the fire, except for one little hummingbird.

This particular hummingbird decided it would do something. It swooped into the stream and picked up a few drops of water and went into the forest and put them on the fire. Then it went back to the stream and did it again, and it kept going back, again and again and again. All the other animals watched in disbelief; some tried to discourage the hummingbird with comments like, “Don’t bother, it is too much, you are too little, your wings will burn, your beak is too tiny, it’s only a drop, you can’t put out this fire.”

And as the animals stood around disparaging the little bird’s efforts, the bird noticed how hopeless and forlorn they looked. Then one of the animals shouted out and challenged the hummingbird in a mocking voice, “What do you think you are doing?” And the hummingbird, without wasting time or losing a beat, looked back and said, “I am doing what I can.”

Graffiti comes to Big Sur, 9/17/18

These were sent to me yesterday. They were taken along Highway One, in Big Sur proper, so-to-speak. Big Sur is being desecrated. What kind of mentality are we getting with our visitors? This is heartbreaking.

Horseshoe Bend – Arizona’s Bixby Bridge

Michael Chatfield sent me this excellent article. The second half of the article outlines the solutions they are implementing, including fees for parking and viewing the phenomena.

HORSESHOE BEND — In simpler times (before social media), Horseshoe Bend was a quiet yet spectacular stop along a lonely stretch of highway in northern Arizona.

Visitors would wander in from U.S. 89, just south of Page, Arizona, either because they’d heard of the dramatic bend in the Colorado River from locals, or noticed the small sign pointing the way and reacted quickly enough to make the sharp turn.

They would take a sandy path to an overlook where the land dropped away steeply to reveal a canvas only nature could paint — an emerald river hundreds of feet below, tracing a graceful arc at the bottom of sharp-edged cliffs.

A few hundred people might stop each day during the summer road-trip season. In winter, maybe just a few dozen.

But those languid days are long gone, lost in the exhaust fumes of the tour buses, party vans and SUVs that choke an area never meant to hold so much glass and steel. Each day they disgorge thousands of visitors, many from China and Germany and France and Japan.

2 million visitors expected in 2018

for the rest of this article, and the solutions they are implementing, see:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/arizona/road-trips/2018/08/09/horseshoe-bend-scenic-hike-near-lake-powell/587733002

For additional article on bigsurkate re Bixby Bridge issues, see:

Nightmare at Bixby Bridge in Big Sur

Public Hearing re TID to fund MCCVB

TID is the Tourist Improvement District tax which is collected by the cities and the counties and given to MCCVB to market the area for tourism. This dovetails with what I posted yesterday. You will recall that MCCVB gets a significant or major part of their financing for marketing our area from the various TIDs. There are 3 “zones” with differing pricing. There is no description of which zones are for what areas, or how those determinations are made. Two hearings, both at 7 pm at the City of Monterey Council Chambers, the first on September 18th and the second at which the tax will be imposed on October 16th.

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Nightmare at Bixby Bridge in Big Sur

And here is a screen shot of the chp website re Bixby from yesterday, thanks to Marcus Foster:

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From the CHP website. “OO” means out of vehicle. This “RDWAY” is Highway 1 through Big Sur. So, translation from chp speak to human is “People are getting out of their vehicles and leaving them parked in the middle of the highway.

Incident:  00177   Type:    Traffic Hazard   Location:   Sr1 / Bixby Brdg  Loc Desc:  SR1 / BIXBY BRDG    Lat/Lon:  36.372378 -121.902408   
Detail Information
12:08 PM 2 [3] GETTING OO VEHS AND LEAVING THEM IN RDWY
12:08 PM 1 [1] VEHS 1124 IN RDWY

 

 

 

Tourist Tuesday, 8/21/18 – a video by Tim Huntington (not BIG enough SUR)


<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&gt;.</p>

A short film about overtourism on the central coast of California.

August 2018

Tourist Tuesday – Easter Island limits visitors

It’s a five-hour flight to Chile’s Easter Island (Rapa Nui) from the nation’s capital of Santiago.
Mysterious, hard-to-get-to and isolated, the volcanic island in Polynesia automatically makes it a dream destination for intrepid travelers who long to get off the beaten path.
The island is famous around the world for its iconic moai — enormous paleolithic structures in the shape of human heads. Rapa Nui National Park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1995.
Related content

New theory paints more sophisticated picture of ancient Easter Island

But now, the island is one of many destinations around the world trying to balance popularity with preservation.
A new initiative both limiting the number of people who can visit the island as well as length of stay for said visitors has changed the accessibility factor further.
to read the rest of this article see: