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Pfeiffer Beach

Photo: Anita Ritenour / CC BY 2.0 · source

🏖️ Beaches

Pfeiffer Beach

Big Sur, CA · Big Sur

About

Down a narrow two-mile lane off Highway 1, Pfeiffer Beach hides one of the West Coast's great payoffs: Keyhole Arch, a sea-carved rock that, for a few short weeks around the winter solstice, lines up with the setting sun and sends a blade of orange light straight through the opening. The sand here runs streaked with violet and rose, manganese garnet washed down from the cliffs and brightest just after winter rain. Come for the arch at low tide and golden hour, stay for the wind, the booming surf, and a stretch of coast that earns every bit of the drive.

Highlights

Keyhole Arch sunset light beamPurple-streaked garnet sandSea stacks and crashing surfHidden off Sycamore Canyon Road

Getting there

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Best Beaches in the US26 places

Best Beaches in the US

From Pacific cliffs and Hawaiian bays to Outer Banks dunes, Great Lakes sand, and Gulf sugar, these are the beaches across the country worth the drive, the flight, or the ferry. Some you walk a mile to reach, some you take a boat or a ferry, and a few you just pull off the highway and gasp. The best beaches in America, coast to coast to coast.