Big Sur place names · stop 41 of 43, going north

Garrapata

Highway 1 was open along this coast when it was last checked. Caltrans' own Lane Closure System, as verified 2026-10-06. Today’s road status.

Garrapata State Park. Two miles of headland and beach with no entrance station and no sign worth the name, just numbered gates and turnouts along the road. The calla lilies in the creek canyon are an escaped garden that never left.

Garrapata is Spanish for tick, and I regret to say the name is earned. Check your socks.

Told by Mabel Plaskett, whose column Coast Trails ran in the King City Rustler’s monthly supplement from 1959 to 1964, and who was in print as early as 1941 under the pen name Belinda Brown. Her family has been on this coast since 1869. Her writing.

Where it is

36.4180, -121.9130 — Highway 1, Big Sur coast, California.

The whole drive, spoken as you go.
Forty-three places between Carmel and San Simeon, free, and it works with no signal once it is loaded — which most of this coast has none of. Open the Big Sur guide.

← South: Rocky Creek North: Carmel Highlands →

All forty-three places →