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# Old Coast Road
- URL: https://www.thequietmile.com/old-coast-road/
- Published: 2026-10-28T00:34:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T00:34:58.000Z
- Description: Twenty miles, four climbs and 4,300 feet of vert on a Big Sur fire road you can't get lost on. The long run I've trained on for ten years.
- Author: Jason Bates
- Tags: Places, Big Sur, Trail Running

At the end of Old Coast Road there is a gate, a stretch of Highway 1, and the trails of Andrew Molera if you want more miles. Most days, there is nothing to do but turn around.

Ten miles in. I usually stop there, at the entrance to Andrew Molera, for a minute. Stretch. Drink. Watch the cars go by. By then the sun is up and the morning has warmed, and the sweat starts to cool. The whole time I know what the stop costs. Every second standing still is a second my legs forget how to climb, and the way back to where I started goes up.

Unless someone is waiting with a car, there is no other way back.

![A runner far ahead on the shaded road through El Sur Ranch](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0616-crop.jpg)

### The road

Old Coast Road is a dirt fire road that runs inland behind the Big Sur coast, from Bixby Bridge to the entrance of Andrew Molera State Park. Ten miles one way. Out and back it is twenty miles and four climbs, and it is the most reliable long run I know on the Monterey Peninsula or anywhere in Big Sur. Wide open. You can take it slow or take it fast. It doesn't care which.

Before Highway 1, this was the coast road. To get around the Bixby Creek canyon it turned inland, and in 1920 the trip from Carmel took about eleven hours by wagon. The bridge closed the gap in 1932, the highway opened in 1937, and the old road was left to the ranches and the fire crews.

Strava says I've run it 27 times since October 2016, counting the long days that kept going into Andrew Molera: more than 620 miles and 125,000 feet of vert. The fastest straight out-and-back was a January morning in 2019, in just over three hours.

Most of those runs started in the dark, parked at Bixby Bridge before the sun came up.

![Predawn over the Big Sur ridgeline](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-4273.jpg)

One morning, getting out of the car, I watched people BASE jumping off the bridge. Pretty sure that's illegal. Brave souls.

0:00 

/0:07 

1× 

### Going out

![Bixby Bridge at dawn from the north turnout](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-3551-crop2.jpg)

The first mile is a small rise, then a drop into a canyon, down to Bixby Creek and a little bridge. Then the first climb. It winds up through a couple of hard turns and doesn't let up, and at the top the coast opens: the Pacific on one side, Big Sur running south. White posts count the distance from the bridge, and none of them land on a round number. 1.16\. 2.11\. 3.28\. 4.01.

![Mile marker 4.01 at the top of the first climb, the valley running down to the ocean](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0622-crop.jpg)

Then it falls away down the switchbacks, a steep, twisting descent into the next valley and down to the Little Sur River, which runs alongside the road for a stretch.

![The switchbacks on the way down from the first climb](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-4933.jpg)

### El Sur Ranch

Past mile six the signs start. PRIVATE – KEEP OUT. TRESPASSING AND LOITERING FORBIDDEN BY LAW. EL SUR RANCH. Most are printed and newer. A couple are older, hand-painted on wood: one nailed to a redwood, one hanging crooked on a fence post with OCR lettered in the corner. The road is yours to run. Everything on either side of it belongs to the ranch.

![Hand-painted El Sur Ranch sign at mile marker 6.81](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0604.jpg)

The ranch began as Rancho El Sur, about 8,900 acres granted to Juan Bautista Alvarado in 1834, when California was still part of Mexico. Alvarado traded it to his uncle, Captain John B.R. Cooper, and it has run cattle ever since. Cooper's grandchildren, the Moleras, inherited the southern end. In 1965 Frances Molera sold the land west of the highway to The Nature Conservancy, and it became the state park where I turn around.

![El Sur Ranch sign at mile 9.05 above the ocean](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0593-crop.jpg)

The second climb is gentler. Wider turns, longer straights, but it still takes you all the way back up to the same height. From the top it's a steady roll down to Molera on fast fire road, the kind where you stop braking and let the legs go.

![The top of the climb above Molera, the ocean under a marine layer](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0567.jpg)

### Coming back

The first climb back has a little twist to it, then settles into steady vert. Partway up, you can see the top. It looks close enough to touch. It is a couple of miles away.

That is the thing about Old Coast Road. On the way back it keeps showing you where you're going, and it is always farther than it looks.

Over the top, you bomb down to the Little Sur again, and then come the switchbacks. They are unforgiving, one tight turn stacked on the next. Some mornings I hike the first few. If I'm feeling strong I run them, slowly.

![Switchbacks dropping into the redwoods](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0542.jpg)

At the end of the switchbacks you think you've made it. You haven't. There is another long pull, and again you can see the top, and again it's about another mile.

When I finally get there, I feel it. Four climbs done. Somewhere over all those runs I stopped looking up at the top so much and started looking at the next turn.

0:00 

/0:20 

1× 

### Mile 19

Then a ripping descent back down to Bixby Creek, and the last mile or two goes straight back up toward Highway 1\. By mile 19 I'm tired and it's a push. Bixby Bridge comes into view in the distance. One last little rise, then about a quarter mile to the car.

![Bixby Bridge framed in the canyon on the last mile back](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0646.jpg)

If I started early enough, there's a crowd at the bridge by the time I get back. People with coffee and phones, taking the photo of Big Sur that everyone takes. When I parked, I may have been the only one there.

### The other end

You can't park at Bixby Bridge anymore. The county closed the shoulders this summer; too many people were stopping for the same photo. These days, if you want to run Old Coast Road, you start at the other end.

![COAST RD sign at the Highway 1 junction near Andrew Molera](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0574-crop.jpg)

So now the run begins where it used to turn around: at the entrance to Andrew Molera.

---

### If you go

**The route.** Old Coast Road is a dirt county road that runs 10.3 miles from Highway 1 at Bixby Bridge to Highway 1 near Andrew Molera State Park. Out and back is about 20.5 miles and 4,300 feet of vert, over four real climbs. It is wide fire road the whole way, nothing technical, so the difficulty is all in the vert.

**Where to start.** Since August 2026, Monterey County has banned parking on Highway 1 around Bixby Bridge as a 12-month pilot. Start at the south end instead: park at Andrew Molera State Park and run to where the road meets Highway 1\. From that end the order flips: the gentler climb comes first, the switchbacks second, and the long climb out of Bixby Creek is on the way back.

**Mile markers.** White posts count the distance from the north end, 0.15 at the bridge to 10.3 at Highway 1 by Molera. Handy for pacing, and for knowing exactly how far the top still is.

![Mile marker 1.16](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0632.jpg)

![Mile marker 2.11](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0629.jpg)

![Mile marker 3.28](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0626.jpg)

![Mile marker 4.10](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0620.jpg)

![Mile marker 5.01](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0618.jpg)

![Mile marker 6.24](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0608.jpg)

![Mile marker 7.39](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0599.jpg)

![Mile marker 8.61](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0594.jpg)

![Mile marker 9.61](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0591.jpg)

![Mile marker 10.20](https://storage.ghost.io/c/88/b5/88b5828e-7a68-4ef9-a87e-88d35501c13d/content/images/2026/10/ocr-0587.jpg)

**Water and food.** Plan on nothing. The road crosses the Little Sur River, but treat anything you drink from it. Carry everything for 20 miles, more in summer. Starting at Molera, your car is the aid station at mile 20.

**Conditions.** The sign at the Bixby end reads IMPASSABLE IN WET WEATHER, and the road can close after rain. High-clearance vehicles use it, so listen for them on blind corners. Once the sun clears the ridge it warms fast. Start early.

**Private land.** From about mile 6 south, El Sur Ranch owns the land on both sides of the road and enforces no-trespassing. Stay on the road.

**Going longer: the Molera extension.** This is how I trained for ultras out here. Park at the Molera lot, run Old Coast Road to Bixby and back, and you pass your car around mile 20\. Refill, eat, then head into the park. The easy add is the flat Creamery Meadow and Bluffs Trail out and back, 4 to 6 miles, for about 25 miles total. The hard add is the Panorama and Ridge Trail loop, which climbs about 1,000 feet above the beach, for 28 to 30 miles and around 6,000 feet. Thirteen days before Canyons 100K in 2022, I ran it loop first, then Old Coast Road.