Nonprofit buys 160 acres near Big Sur for long-term protection

On Monday, the Wilderness Land Trust, a nonprofit in Montana, announced it had bought what it calls the Church Creek property, which sits in the heart of the coastal range adjacent to the Tassajara Mountain Zen Center, a remote and historic Buddhist monastery built at a natural hot springs site. The property is also a short distance as the crow flies from the Arroyo Seco Campground area, a hub of backcountry trails that serves as a launchpad for backpackers into the vast Ventana Wilderness inland from Big Sur.

“With incredible vistas, flat building sites and access via a public road, the Church Creek property would have been at high risk of development had it sold to a private buyer,” the Wilderness Land Trust wrote in a press release.

from SF Chronicle - read online

I had no idea the SFZC acquired the Church Creek Property. I've written the prez and some others to ask how this all came about. Maybe twenty years ago I got Wilderness Trust folks together with Bob Beck (who sold ZC Tassajara) and they bought the nearby Horse Pasture parcel from him. Years before that the SFZC had bought the Pines parcel from him and I'm pretty sure it went to a land trust then to the Forest Service but I don't know about that. I'm going to look into it all, Church Creek first.

When Shunryu Suzuki went to Church Creek Ranch with a group to pick apples from their trees, he said upon seeing it for the first time, "Let's buy it." He brought it up later in a lecture. It's much more open and less closed in by steep mountainsides like Tassajara. A lot more sun. And it has the famous caves. - DC