AUTUMN IN BIG SUR

THE WORLD OF THE LIME KILNS

It is a heart link for us.
We were first enchanted by the area
when it was a private campground.

From that date in 1969 our lives were

 drawn again and again to

special moments in this Redwood Forest Canyon.

We've celebrated, mourned, camped, hiked,

and always gain respect for its reverie.

The light plays with shadows

in a fairy like way.

Textures abound.

 Up the canyon are the old Kilns, reverting to time's and the 
forests design for them.

The Rockland Lime and Lumber Company

built the kilns in 1887.

Crushed limestone and debris from a landslide

and from shallow hillside pits north east of the kilns were 

put on sleds for a trip down the slope.

An 1888 State Mineralogist report said the kilns were 

loaded from the top and had a capacity of 110 barrels a day.

The operation burned local redwood to heat

the stone to 600 degrees to breakdown the

limestone into quick lime or caustic lime.

The byproduct was was removed from the kiln, cooled and

then loaded on wagons to be taken out of the canyon.

 Down the canyon to steam powered pulleys to be loaded aboard steamships that carried the material north where it 
was used in cement and concrete to build San Francisco.

As our friend Jim, who first took us to Lime Kiln and Big Sur, always says "Big Sur never disappoints." 
See you down the trail.