Mill Creek Picnic Area – Big Sur California

The Mill Creek Picnic Area in Big Sur is a day use picnic area with a small beach in Los Padres National Forest, Monterey County, California. This area is considered part of the Central California Coast.

You can drive very close to the water down the access road to the Mill Creek Picnic area. This is one of the few spots where you can drive down almost to sea level along the Big Sur Coast.

The Mill Creek Picnic Area often is an excellent place to launch a kayak or standup paddle board (SUP). Local fishermen sometimes launch their boats from this spot.

Road conditions updates for access to Mill Creek Picnic Area and other Big Sur Locations

Mill Creek Picnic Area offers a launch spot that is usable even when the surf is moderately large. After launching, you can paddle either north along the steep cliff, or south towards the wonderful sea stacks offshore from Pacific Valley and the towering Plaskett Rocks in the distance. As you paddle south, the sea stacks get closer and more impressive. After about 3 miles, you are amongst them. The next mile as you head toward Sand Dollar Beach, there are many scenic coves and sea stacks. If the surf is small, you can paddle inside on the shoreward side of some of the sea stacks and explore the coves. In the coves and around the points, there are many shallow rocks upon which waves may break if the surf gets a little bigger, so be alert. Off of the tip of the point just beyond the cove by Sand Dollar Beach are several large and impressive rock islands including Plaskett Rocks.

Mill Creek Picnic Area is located down a short access road off of highway 1 about 2 miles south of Limekiln and 4.5 miles north of the Sand Dollar Picnic Area. Unless you know there is a coastal access here, you could easily miss this spot. You can drive very near to the water here, though you need to carry your kayak over some rocks to get to the small sandy beach to the north of the parking area. The beach may sometimes be submerged at high tide. The north end of the beach has an excellent rip tide channel that allows for easy launching and landing. We were able to make

a perfectly dry launch and landing here even when the swell was breaking a moderatly large 4 to 5 feet on the point at the south end of the beach. On this same crystal clear windless December day we saw 10 sea otters as we paddled the approximately 10 mile round trip from Mill Creek around Plaskett Rocks.

More information about paddling the Big Sur coast is at my Big Sur Paddling web page.

Scroll down the page to see more pictures and information from the area near Mill Creek!!

Google Map Links To Mill Creek Picnic Area - Big Sur, California: Mill Creek Picnic Area Map https://goo.gl/maps/Tgs9p

More Google Map Links To Mill Creek Picnic Area - Big Sur, California: Mill Creek Picnic Area Map https://goo.gl/maps/HNjKq

Mill Creek Picnic Area Beach - Big Sur California - small surf day in November:

Mill Creek Picnic Area Big Sur - Looking across rocks towards small beach – the small beach can often be an excellent place to launch a kayak or standup paddle board (SUP) – The North end of the beach (furthest away from you as you look from the parking lot) often has a rip current you can paddle out through when the waves are bigger.

The above picture shows a small surf day. Compare this to the next picture which shows a BIG surf day...

Mill Creek Picnic Area - Big Sur California - BIG surf day in December - We launched and paddled on this day:

On the same BIG surf day Just after landing the kayak on the beach by Mill Creek Picnic Area:

On the same BIG surf day looking at Plaskett Rocks by Sand Dollar with very BIG surf:

According to a local fisherman, the surf had been even larger for several days before this. The surf can get very BIG in the winter along the Big Sur coast.

Kayaking out by Plaskett Rocks on the same December day shown in the above picture - we launched at Mill Creek:

Read more about this part of the Big Sur Coast and our paddling trips from Mill Creek exploring the coast by Pacific Valley on my Big Sur Coast South Page.

When you paddled South from Mill Creek you go past sea stacks by Pacific Valley:

Read more about this part of the Big Sur Coast on my Big Sur Coast South Page.

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