John Little State Natural Reserve

Big Creek State Marine Reserve (SMR) and Big Creek State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) are two adjoining marine protected areas that lie offshore of Big Sur on California's central coast. The combined area of these marine protected areas is 22.45 square miles (58.1 km2). The SMR protects all marine life within its boundaries. Fishing and take of all living marine resources is prohibited. Within the SMCA fishing and take of all living marine resources is prohibited except the commercial and recreational take of salmon, albacore, and the commercial take of spot prawn.

Slates Hot Springs (also known as Big Sur Hot Springs, Slate's Hot Springs, Slate's Springs, and Slate's Hot Sulphur Springs) is the site of a hot spring in the Big Sur region of Monterey County, California. It is located 8 miles (13 km) north-northwest of Lopez Point, at an elevation of 118 feet (36 m). Thomas B. Slate filed a land patent for the site and adjacent land on September 9, 1882. He built a home on the site of the springs in 1868 and developed the springs for tourists. He claimed that the waters cured him of arthritis and it attracted others seeking a cure for their physical ailments. He sold the property to Salinas physician Dr. Henry Cloyd Murphy in 1910, whose family owned it until 1967, when Michael Murphy and Dick Price bought it from the estate of Michael's grandmother, Vinnie McDonald Murphy. They incorporated the business as Esalen Institute.

The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanistic alternative education. The institute played a key role in the Human Potential Movement beginning in the 1960s. Its innovative use of encounter groups, a focus on the mind-body connection, and their ongoing experimentation in personal awareness introduced many ideas that later became mainstream. Esalen was founded by Michael Murphy and Dick Price in 1962, both former students of Frederic Spiegelberg. Their intention was to support alternative methods for exploring human consciousness, what Aldous Huxley described as "human potentialities". Over the next few years, Esalen became the center of practices and beliefs that made up the New Age movement, from Eastern religions/philosophy, to alternative medicine and mind-body interventions, from transpersonal to Gestalt practice. Price ran the institute until he died in a hiking accident in 1985. In 2012, the board hired professional executives to help raise money and keep the institute profitable. Until 2016, Esalen offered over 500 workshops yearly in areas including Gestalt practice, personal growth, meditation, massage, yoga, psychology, ecology, spirituality, and organic food. In 2016, about 15,000 people attended its workshops. In February 2017, the institute was cut off when Highway 1 was closed by a mud slide on either side of the hot springs. It closed its doors, evacuated guests via helicopter, and was forced to lay off 90% of its staff through at least July, when they reopened with limited workshop offerings. It also decided to revamp its offerings to include topics more relevant to a younger generation. As of July 2017, due to the limited access resulting from the road closures, the hot springs are only open to Esalen guests.

The Dolan Fire was a large wildfire that burned in the Big Sur region and other parts of the Santa Lucia mountain range in Monterey County, California, in the United States as part of the 2020 California wildfire season. The fire began at approximately 8:15 p.m. on August 18, 2020. On September 8, 15 firefighters were injured, one critically, when they were forced to deploy emergency fire shelters at Nacimiento Station. Ten adult California condors and two chicks died in the blaze, which began about a mile south of the Big Sur Condor Sanctuary in Monterey County. The nonprofit Ventana Wildlife Society of Monterey lost a sanctuary that has been used to release the captive-bred condors into the wild since 1997. While no people or condors were at the 80-acre (32 ha) site, a research building, pens, and other facilities were destroyed. The fire burned parts of the Ventana Wilderness, Fort Hunter Liggett, along Nacimiento-Fergusson Road, and forced the closure of many area state parks as well as a section of California State Route 1. As of December 31, 2020, the fire has been fully contained. According to the D.A, the estimated cost of fighting the fire was $63 million. The fire also destroyed the USFS Nacimiento Ranger Station. During winter storms following the fire, entire sections of the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road were washed away, reopening in November 2024 after $12 million in repairs. In January 2022, U.S. Representative Jimmy Panetta announced that he had obtained $126 million in Federal Highway Administration funds to repair the road and rebuild the USFS Nacimiento Ranger Station destroyed in the blaze. This includes replacing the fire station, barracks, engine garage and pumphouse, along with some site utilities, such as a water well, solar connections and access roads. The Dolan fire was started by arson, and Ivan Gomez was arrested in connection with the fire and convicted of arson subsequent to his confession. Gomez claimed he lit the fire to hide five murders, but his mental competency, the true intentionality of the arson, and the actual existence of bodies were put in question. On September 23, 2020, a judge ruled that he was competent to stand trial. He was convicted in April 2022 of 16 felony counts, including arson and cruelty to animals. In May 2022, he was sentenced to 24 years in state prison.

Anderson Canyon in the Big Sur region of California was named after pioneering homesteaders James and Peter Andersen who were the first European settlers of the area. The canyon, Anderson Creek, and Anderson Peak (4,099 feet (1,249 m)) are south of McWay Falls and within the boundaries of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. During the construction of Highway One in the 1920s and the 1930s, it was the location of a convict work camp. After the camp closed, literary bohemians like Henry Miller rented the shacks, forming what Miller later called the "Anderson Creek Gang". The canyon is within the boundaries of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Sea Otter Refuge, and California condor reintroduction area. The Staude House built in the 1960s sits on a bluff at the mouth of Anderson Canyon 120 feet (37 m) above sea level. A 90 acres (36 ha) parcel on the bluff between the coastal cliff and Highway 1 sold for $31,394,000 in 2010, one of the largest sale prices for residential real estate in Monterey County history.

McWay Falls is an 80-foot-tall (24 m) waterfall on the coast of Big Sur in central California that flows year-round from McWay Creek in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, about 37 miles (60 km) south of Carmel, into the Pacific Ocean. During high tide, it is a tidefall, a waterfall that empties directly into the ocean. The only other tidefall in California is Alamere Falls.

McWay Creek is a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) coastal stream in Monterey County in the U.S. state of California. It flows steeply west and south from McWay Canyon, high in California's Central Coast Range, and spills into the Pacific Ocean at Waterfall Cove after flowing over scenic McWay Falls. Most of the creek and its watershed are contained within Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, 12 miles (19 km) south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The creek is named after Christopher McWay from New York, a pioneer who homesteaded the property. A Pelton wheel was installed in McWay Creek and generated power for Saddle Rock Ranch, the only electricity in the area for many years. The creek and its canyon are rich in vegetation types, due to the humid coastal climate with frequent fog and rainfall.

The Big Creek Bridge is a 589-foot (180 m)-long, open spandrel, concrete deck arch bridge located on the southern portion of the Big Sur coast of California, along State Route 1 near Lucia. Opened for traffic in 1938, it crosses Big Creek Canyon on this scenic, mountainous coast.

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park is a state park in California, 12 miles south of Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park on California's Pacific coast. A main feature of the park is McWay Falls, which drops over a cliff of 80 feet (24 m) into the Pacific Ocean. The park is also home to 300-foot (90 m) redwoods which are over 2,500 years old. The park is named after Julia Pfeiffer Burns, a respected resident and rancher in the Big Sur region in the early 20th century, who lived in the area for much of her life until her death in 1928. The 6-square-mile (16-square-kilometer) park was established in 1962.

The 3,848 acres (6.013 mi2) Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve located in the southern region of Big Sur, California is owned by the University of California Natural Reserve System. It is located off State Route 1 in 50 miles (80 km) south of Monterey and adjacent to the Big Creek State Marine Reserve and Big Creek State Marine Conservation Area. It is open only for approved research or educational purposes.

The Willow Fire was a wildfire that burned in the Ventana Wilderness in Monterey County, California, in the United States as part of the 2021 California wildfire season. The fire started on June 17, 2021, burned 2,877 acres (1,164 ha), and was fully contained on July 12, 2021. The cause of the fire is under investigation and is currently unknown.

The Marble Cone Fire was a wildland fire that burned for three weeks in August 1977 in the Santa Lucia Mountains high country of the Big Sur area of Monterey County, California including the Ventana Wilderness. Started by two lightning strikes, the fire burned 177,866 acres (720 km2) in the Santa Lucia Mountains, making it the largest wildfire in the state since the Matilija Fire of 1932, although as of 2024 it no longer ranks in the top twenty. About 5,700 firefighters cut 160 miles (260 km) of line around the fire before it was contained. The fire burned 90% of the vegetation cover in the upper Big Sur River watershed. This posed a threat of flooding along the Big Sur River as a much smaller fire in August 1972 had led to severe flooding. This time, however, the rains were moderate and resulted in no major flooding problems. The fire cost $10.65 million to contain and caused millions of dollars more in damage to the watersheds of the Carmel River Valley, Arroyo Seco River, Big Sur, Little Sur River and Big Creek.