Travelers can once again drive the entire Big Sur coast as the troublesome slide area of Highway 1 reopened Wednesday.

That means that, for the first time in exactly three years, drivers will be able to make the trip from Cambria to Carmel, since the first in a string of slides closed that part of the highway on Jan. 14, 2023.

Work at the troublesome Regent’s Slide area, located about 27 miles north of the San Luis Obispo/Monterey County line, is said to be complete enough and safe for through traffic.

Recently, road agency officials had hinted the reopening at the site of the Regent’s Slide, which occurred in February 2024, might happen earlier than the original Caltrans estimate of March.

But then the area and much of California were slammed by a couple weeks of winter storms and rain.

After the latest January downpours, mud did ooze onto the brand-new pavement there, fortuitously laid right before the rains started, but the complex repairs held up, according to spokesman Kevin Drabinski.

That mess and smaller slides elsewhere on the roadway were cleared quickly, he said. But the road remained closed for final chores.

As always, any optimism about the road being — and staying — open will continue to depend on weather and site conditions, he said.

Any significant rain can send more boulders, rocks and muddy sludge from the route’s steep cliffs down onto the pavement.

“We are still at the start of the winter rainy season,” Drabinski said earlier this month, but no rain is in the current forecast.

In a sight not seen for three years to the day, vehicles travel Highway 1 on Jan. 14, 2026, in front of the newly repaired Regent’s Slide. The highway’s full reopening to travel between Cambria and Carmel revives a vital economic lifeline for local business owners and residents. pic.twitter.com/le7qAiuj2s

— Caltrans Central Coast (District 5) (@CaltransD5) January 15, 2026

Businesses, Leaders Grateful for Reopening

Local leaders, businesses and their employees are cautiously celebrating that the road will indeed be open for this weekend’s Martin Luther King Day vacationers and those expected for the Presidents’ Day holiday, spring break and beyond.

It’s been a long haul for area businesses, trying to keep doors open and hold on to staff while trimming costs in the face of declining customer counts.

With the highway reopening, restaurants finally can ramp up their orders for supplies, staffers whose hours were cut could see increased work, shops will prepare for more potential customers, and motels can prep for more visitors.

The reopening “will be like getting back the oxygen we’ve been deprived of for so long. Having Highway 1 open will breathe life back into this area,” Pratik Vyas, general manager for The Morgan at San Simeon Hotel and the Motel 6 there, said of the closure of the popular route.

(The latter San Simeon lodging is closed for complete remodeling until about May, he said, and will reopen then as a Hampton Inn.)

Business at The Morgan, on the ocean side of the highway, has been down about 40% during the closure, he said, and the business faced many challenges, including “trying to keep all our full-time employees, which made it harder than it could have been.”

Katherine Gillen, membership/marketing director for the Cambria Chamber of Commerce, is grateful to see the long closure finally coming to an end.

“It brings tears of joy knowing that Cambria will be booming very soon into the year 2026,” she said.

A member of her board of directors agreed.

“Oh my gosh! It’s such a big deal!” said Christina Galloway, who also chairs the North Coast Advisory Council.

“It’s absolutely an important moment for our business community and for residents,” Galloway said. “Highway 1 is a lifeline for Cambria’s tourism-based economy, driven almost entirely by small, locally owned businesses.

“For many, this reopening will be the difference between staying open and shutting their doors.”

“Visitors keep our local businesses viable, and those businesses are what allow Cambria to function as a real, year-round community,” she added.

Lisa Marie Belsanti, vice president of communication for Visit SLOCAL, said the group was eager to hear the highway was finally open again.

“We’re awaiting official news, just like everybody else,” she said.

The destination marketing nonprofit represents businesses countywide, including restaurants, hotels, motels and Airbnb accommodations.

The reopening will be “highly anticipated welcome news,” she said.

Belsanti said businesses should see a noticeable uptick once the highway fully opens.

“They’re hoping for more visitation and that occupation will rise” as people plan for trips further into Big Sur and beyond, she said. “I think it will be a big boon.”

Fixing Regent’s Slide has Been Challenging, Expensive and Time-Consuming

Regent’s Slide cascaded down on Feb. 9, 2024, burying the highway under tons of rock, mud and debris that slid down the steep hillside onto the highway surface and into the sea below.

Earlier slides had closed the entire highway stretch for overlapping periods starting in January 2023.

Work there was slowed frequently, and stopped occasionally, by the hillside’s continued draining and sloughing off.

It simply wasn’t safe to work there at times.

The project included sculpting the slope face, using huge, remote-controlled excavators, installing thousands of long, heavy shear dowels into the hillside and putting cable-net drapery “mesh” over the hillside.

More than 300,000 cubic yards of slide material were removed.

Especially helpful was the “the mesh netting that did its job, stopping anything of significant size from reaching the roadway,” Drabinski said.

The estimate to repair and reopen the area was $82.6 million, Drabinksi said, noting the final tally “will be close to that.”

All of that work was to pay off at noon on Wednesday when the first car crosses the repaired stretch of highway for the first time in three years.

For her part, Galloway called the reopening “an economic turning point” and said it was important to focus on the balance between tourism, community character and sustainability.

“Restored access supports the people who live and work here every day, not just those who pass through, and invites us to be more deliberate about how we care for a place that is both home and destination,” Galloway said.

“If there’s such a thing as sustainable tourism, this is the moment to lean into it.”