Iconic California highway to be closed for months after landslide

A section of California's iconic coastal highway will likely remain closed for months after a massive rain-driven landslide that went into the Pacific Ocean, a state transportation official said on Wednesday.

It marks the third major closure along the Big Sur portion, along California's Central Coast, after the wettest winter on record in the state. The section is designated a National Scenic Byway.

One of the most picturesque U.S. roads, Route 1 follows most of the California coast and is known for dramatic views, including where it crosses the Golden Gate Bridge.

The slide, which CalTrans spokesman Colin Jones called the largest in decades, is estimated to have deposited debris 35 feet deep along a quarter-mile section of State Route 1 about 100 miles south of San Jose on Saturday.

'I think it's safe to say it will be several months before it reopens,” Jones said by phone. 'We haven't even been able to get in and assess the damage and come up with a plan.”

Jones added that rerouting the road entirely around the damaged section was not off the table.

While the area affected is not the busiest section of the highway, as many as 6,000 vehicles a day typically pass through the stretch of road blocked by the landslide during the summer tourist season.

Erosion led highway officials to close a bridge on Route 1 in Pfeiffer Canyon in February, and a March landslide closed a stretch of the road near Lime Kiln State park. The bridge is not expected to reopen until late September, Jones said.

'Typically when it rains for a few days, you can expect small slides that our maintenance crews can clean up in a few hours,” Jim Shivers, a CalTrans spokesman, said by phone on Wednesday. 'These are way beyond the scope of what we're used to responding to.”

(Reporting by Tom James; Editing by Patrick Enright and Richard Chang)