Big Sur Coast

I started from King City towards Salinas and then turned left towards the hills. There's a river valley there which allows you to get most of the way to the ocean while still having a place to land. There are only about 5 miles of truly mountainous terrain to cross and by flying high you can hopefully glide to somewhere safe if the engine quits.

As you can see from the picture below, the Coastal Range mountains are pretty rugged, so you wouldn't want to have to land there.

As you cross the mountains the view opens up and the ocean spreads out in front of you. A truly spectacular view. Here's the Big Sur coastline looking south:

After reaching the ocean we turned north and quickly reached Point Sur. The little pimple on top of the rock is the famous Pt Sur lighthouse.

The coastline in either direction is spectacular, with the mountains seemingly dropping directly into the sea. The road hugs the hillsides and would not be much use for emergency landings. However, there are a few flat spots, such as near the lighthouse itself, and also sandy beaches. As you can see from the pictures, I was staying pretty high, just in case. Here's the coast going North.

Here's much the same area during a more typically foggy day.

Driving along the coast takes hours, while in the little Cessna we were whizzing along, enjoying the view and not worrying about what maniac might be cutting the blind corner on the road ahead. I went on to land at Monterey.