Sykes Hot Spring Big Sur

Sykes Hot Spring is one of California's most celebrated wilderness hot springs, located in the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest along the Big Sur coast of Monterey County, requiring a 10-mile trail hike through coast redwood canyons and chaparral to reach natural bicarbonate thermal pools set above the Big Sur River gorge amid old-growth forest. The bicarbonate-mineral composition of Sykes' spring waters carries properties valued for skin nourishment and musculoskeletal relaxation, while the effort required to reach them—through some of California's most dramatically beautiful coastal mountain terrain—gives the bathing experience a character of earned wilderness reward unique among Pacific Coast thermal destinations. The Big Sur coastline, where the Santa Lucia Mountains plunge directly into the Pacific and the cultural legacy of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, and generations of artists and seekers has shaped a mythology of creative solitude, frames Sykes Hot Spring as a destination as much about the journey as the geothermal waters themselves.