Camping and hiking

The USFS Plaskett Creek Campground has 44 campsites. The campground is on the east side of Highway 1 in a forest of Monterey Pine, Cypress, and Cedar trees. There are three group campsites for tent and RV camping. There are no hookups or a dump station. Each site is equipped with a table and campfire ring with grill. Flush toilets, sinks and drinking water are provided throughout the campground.^[2][3]

Camping alongside Highway 1 or other local roads is illegal, as is sleeping in vehicles overnight. Due to high fire danger, campfires and BBQ usage are only permitted in designated campgrounds.^[4] There is a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) coastal trail from Jade Cove to Plaskett Rock Point a quarter mile south of the Plaskett Creek Campground.

The 1.1 miles (1.8 km) Pacific Valley Bluff Trail is across Highway 1 from the Pacific Valley Ranger Station, and 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the Plaskett Creek Campground. It offers a short walk to the sea side bluffs with views of the Santa Lucia Range to the north and Sand Dollar Beach to the south.^[5]

The Pacific Valley Ranger Station is 1.3 miles (2.1 km) north of Plaskett. There are restrooms and a public telephone. There is no cell coverage or wifi service in the area. The nearest services are in Gorda 3.9 miles (6.3 km) south and in Lucia, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) to the north.

Sand Dollar Beach

Sand Dollar Beach is a .5 miles (0.80 km) long public beach, one of the longest beaches on the Big Sur coast. It is within the Los Padres National Forest and across Highway 1 from Plaskett Creek Campground. There is a picnic area, bathrooms, and barbeque pits at the parking area. There is a $10 access fee payable at the parking lot. Dogs are permitted on leash while on the trail and off leash at the beach.^[6] Beach access is open daily from sunrise to sunset and is only available for day use. Swimming and wading are not recommended due to dangerous surf conditions and strong rip currents.^[7]

Jade Cove

There is a steep 0.1 miles (0.16 km) trail from the Plaskett Campground to Jade Cove that ends in a rope-assisted drop to the beach. The beach can be dangerous during high tides and storms.^[8] The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary permits individuals to collect loose jade from an area south of Sand Dollar Beach to Cape San Martin and up to 90 feet (27 m) deep offshore. Individuals may remove only what they can individually carry. Only hand tools are permitted.^[9]

Resort

The Treebones Resort 3.4 miles (5.5 km) to the south offers high-end accommodations in yurts and meals at the Wild Coast Restaurant.^[10]

Native people

The land may have first been occupied the Salinan Playano subtribe who are believed to have lived as far north as Slates Hot Springs, easterly over the Santa Lucia Mountains and Junipero Serra Peak, inland towards Soledad and as far south as what is now San Simeon. The shell middens left behind indicate that indigenous people lived in the area in numbers along the coast. Their main diet during the summer consisted of fish and shell fish, evidenced by the fine particles of shell present in the soil for a depth of several feet in areas where the Indians camped. The Salinan named the peak Pimkolam.^[11][12][13] The tribe's name is taken from the Salinas River, as the tribe did not appear to have a name for themselves.^[14][15]

European homesteaders

Frank Muma was the first European to settle in the north end of what was later named Pacific Valley in the early 1850s. In 1864 he sold his squatter's right to Jim Prewitt and Curnell Mansfield. They brought cattle from Bryson in southern Monterey County during 1859. They returned in 1864 to buy Muma's land.^[13]

Mansfield filed for a homestead on the south side of Prewitt Creek (named for Jim Prewitt). He later bought Prewitt's homestead and all the land between the Pacific Ocean and the crest of the Santa Lucia Range, totalling nearly 4,000 acres (1,600 ha).^[13]

William Lucas Plaskett, his wife Sarah Barnes, and their 11 children left the California Central Valley in Fresno, California in July 1869. The first two children were born in Iowa and the rest were born in California. They drove their wagons filled with all their possessions along with their cattle and horses over Pacheco Pass, down the Salinas Valley, and crossed the coast range over Indian trails until they reached Pacific Valley in September, 1869.

Before winter set in, the family built a saw mill in what was later named after the family as Plaskett Creek. They cut and milled redwood into lumber that allowed them to build substantial homes on the bank of Plaskett Creek. The twelfth child was born in Pacific Valley in 1870. Grizzly bears were known to kill cattle and were an ever-present threat to the children.^[16]

Mansfield married the daughter of his neighbor, Mendocina Plaskett. In 1887, he hired two of her brothers, Reason and Robert, to build a frame home. It survived into the 1960s, when it was the headquarters for the U. S. Forest Service in the area.^[13]

Pacific Valley Landing

Supplies were brought overland from Jolon and later, after the Union Pacific Railroad reached the Salinas Valley, from Soledad. Around the turn of the century, the families along the coast of the Pacific Valley area chartered a steamship once a year to bring supplies from San Francisco. Staples included barrels of flour and sugar, bolts of calico and flannel, and miscellaneous articles. They also shipped out lumber produced from a number of sawmills along Prewitt and Plaskett Creeks.

They were delivered to a dog hole port at the mouth of Plaskett Creek on Sand Dollar Beach.^[16] An 1888 map indicated a boat landing at a rock outcropping on the south end of the beach. In 1889, George Davidson reported:^[17]

Off the mouth of the canon there is summer anchorage in six to eight fathoms of water, with a good boat landing on a sandy beach. There are a few houses and a schoolhouse here. The remains of an old chute were still standing in 1885.

William and Sarah moved to Salinas in 1896. William died in 1909 at the age of 94 and Sarah lived to be 96 passing away in 1923. William Randolph Hearst developed an interest in acquiring more land to add to the ranch his father George Hearst had purchased.^[18] Many of the coast ranchers sold their land to him in 1922 and the once closely knit families scattered.^[16]

Legacy

The family orchard is now the site of the Plaskett Creek Camp Ground.^[16] Plaskett Creek, Plaskett Creek Campground, Plaskett Rock, Plaskett Ridge, and Plaskett Ridge Road are named for the pioneer family.^{[19]: 38 [20][21]}

In 1893 and 1897, Alice Eastwood, the Curator of Botany at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, visited Pacific Valley. She was hosted by the Plaskett family. She collected many specimens, but especially the rare and endemic Santa Lucia Fir (Abies bracteata).^[22]

Reason Alpha Plaskett was one of the sons of William and Sarah Plaskett. He built a home at Gorda, four miles to the south, in 1869. Reason sent her a number of specimens of local plants in 1897 and 1898.^[22]

Eastwood believed that plants represented by at least six of Plaskett's specimens warranted botanical recognition, two of which she named in honor of him: Nemophila plaskettii and Linanthus plaskettii, which today are recognized as synonyms for Nemophila parviflora, also known as Baby Blue Eyes.^[23][24]

Junge Cabin

The Junge Cabin, a one-room redwood cabin built in 1920 by homesteader John Junge, is found in Pacific Valley.^[25]