When will access to Arroyo Seco—and its access to the Ventana Wilderness—be restored?

David Schmalz here, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not loving the weather—it’s May 1, and it started raining in Seaside just after 1pm. National Weather Service meteorologists in Monterey are predicting cooler than average temperatures all week, and rain, maybe even thunderstorms, that will only start to taper off after Thursday. We “may” get dry weather this weekend. Ugh. 

One thing that comforted me this past winter was dreaming of warm days to come—venturing somewhere where I can be on or next to a river, hiking, tubing, or laying on rocks like a lizard and dipping into the river now and again to cool off. 

For the latter, there’s no better place in Monterey County to do that than the Arroyo Seco River, but this past winter has taken its toll in two major ways. 

The first is that it damaged Arroyo Seco Road, which has been closed since March 10. Above the road, there is also an unstable hillside that started sliding down toward the road, but progress largely stopped once the rains subsided. County spokesperson Maia Carroll says work is currently being done on planning and design to fix the road damage, and pending weather and regulatory approval, construction is expected to begin in June.  

As for the slide, it’s complicated: geological engineers from the state Office of Emergency Services have set up cameras to monitor the activity of the slide, which is on privately owned land. Those cameras went live this morning. 

But for hikers, the winter storms also knocked out another key piece of infrastructure—the Arroyo Seco horse bridge. Stormwaters in the Arroyo Seco River washed out the bridge in January, cutting off a key eastern access point to the Ventana Wilderness backcountry. U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Andrew Madsen says the bridge was about 100 years old, and that despite online speculation in the wake of the bridge getting washed out, the Forest Service is planning to replace it. 

But replacing a bridge is a matter of funding, and when that funding becomes available. Madsen says there’s been about $182 million in damage this past winter across the Los Padres National Forest (which also has a southern division that spans four counties, which is where much of that damage occurred). Madsen says the first priority is to repair the damaged roads, and that recreation infrastructure like trails and the horse bridge will come after that. 

I’ll be looking for updates going forward, as Arroyo Seco is one of my favorite places in Monterey County, and ’tis the season to lay out like a lizard and fall asleep along the banks to the sound of flowing water. At least it’s supposed to be that season—and I hope it arrives soon, if late.