The Tan Oak Trail

Loop hike with the fire road and Highway One

Length 6.3 mi · Climbing 1980 ft

California > Big Sur > Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park

The Tan Oak Trail

Background

This loop climbs through redwood uplands on its way up to an abandoned house. For the most part this hike lacks the lush forests and scenic beauty of the Ewoldsen Trail, although it's redeemed by some spectacular coastal views near the end.

The Tan Bark Trail climbs steeply through somewhat arid-looking forest. The trail can get overgrown, but thankfully there isn't much poison oak. The Fire Road descends even more steeply through somewhat more attractive woods. The best part of the loop is the last half-mile of the fire road, which offers the sort of views of the Big Sur coast that you see on all the postcards.

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Hike description

To find the trailhead, which is unmarked, begin at the McWay park entrance and drive north on Highway 1. The road climbs and after a mile you'll come to a vista point. The road then descends for a mile and makes a hairpin turn before starting to climb again. At the hairpin turn you may notice some cars parked at a large turnout. Just north of the turn, an unmarked, gated dirt road to your left leads to Partington Cove. To the right is the Tan Oak Trail, also unmarked.

For its first half-mile, the Tan Oak Trail runs along the bottom of a redwood-filled canyon. There are signs of logging here and despite a carpet of redwood sorrel the canyon has a dry, disheveled look. Soon the trail makes a hairpin turn and begins a classic Big Sur climb, long and steep, in this case 2.8 miles at an average grade of 13%. The trail climbs up the side of the canyon and emerges from the redwoods into an area of dead tanoaks. The added sunlight has encouraged the growth of thick underbrush and, if not recently maintained, this part can be slow going if the trail.

The trail eventually re-enters the redwoods and levels out a little. The sounds of a rushing creek can be heard below. The largest redwoods of the hike are found at the easternmost point in the loop, where a high-elevation grove grows in a small glen with a little brook flowing through it. There's no groundcover here, just tanoak leaf litter.

At the highest point of the trail, an overgrown, poison oak-infested unofficial trail branches off and heads into private land. The main trail then begins to descend and soon ends at the fire road. To your left, the fire road descends a short distance to the Tin House. To your right, the trail descends to Highway One.

The fire road

The forest along the fire road is actually more pleasant than that along the Tan Oak Trail. As you descend you'll get some views of the canyon, but these are spoiled a little by a housing development on the opposite wall.

The scenery makes an abrupt change for the better when the trail rounds a bend, revealing a sweeping and dramatic view of the coast. The trail descends through chaparral that's an unusually brilliant green and is strewn with wildflowers throughout the summer. A thousand feet below, the ocean is a huge, glittering blue plain. The sounds of the surf emanate up from the shoreline.

The road curves through a tiny but pretty redwood grove just before ending at Highway One, a few yards south of the vista point. It's possible to walk back along the highway, but its occasionally narrow shoulders combined with wide, fast-moving RVs make this a hazardous walk. At one spot with an almost nonexistent shoulder, the road is banked such that the oncoming RVs actually lean toward you.

If you don't want to do the full loop, you can see the best part of the trail by parking at the vista point and climbing the fire road a half-mile to the point where it makes a right-hand turn into the canyon. At first the fire road is so steep that it looks like a vertical wall of dirt, but it levels out a little after the first quarter-mile.

Near the end of the fire road