Travel and Fire Safety
People who visit Esalen Institute may encounter two specific problems that affect their experience of the institute.
The most common problem is driving conditions. Highway 1, the principal gateway for visitors traveling to Esalen Institute, is an audacious and problematic engineering accomplishment. The road traverses the edge of cliffs overhanging the ocean. Often it is closed by landslides. Especially during periods of stormy weather, visitors are cautioned to check the status of the Highway 1 before departure.
A much less common problem is the risk of fire. Esalen is surrounded by large tracts of state forests and federal wilderness areas. For this reason, human habitations in Big Sur are periodically threatened by fire. The "Rat Creek" fire, in 1985, damaged some of Esalen's facilities. The "Basin Complex" fire, in 2008, threatened Esalen, but never came close enough to damage the grounds. However, there was a fire in October 2011 that destroyed housing at Esalen’s South Coast Center.
The Esalen community has learned to live with the physical challenges of life in Big Sur, although visitors who are used to different lifestyles may find these problems disconcerting.
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Famous quotes containing the words travel, fire and/or safety:
“When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,—none of the servants.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary nature, leaving their mentality untouched, their self-possession intact. They are not burnt by even the red fire of physical passion—far less by the white fire of love.”
—Mary Webb (1881–1927)
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliché that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)