Bottchers Gap (sometimes spelled Botcher's Gap) (closed ) is a day use area, campground, and trail head. It is located from the

Big Sur Coast Highway Big Sur Coast Highway is a section of California State Route 1 through the Big Sur region of California that is widely considered to be one of the most scenic driving routes in the United States, if not the world. It is both a National Scenic ...

at the end of Palo Colorado Road on the northern border of the

Los Padres National Forest Los Padres National Forest is a United States national forest in Southern California, southern and central California. Administered by the United States Forest Service, Los Padres includes most of the mountainous land along the California coast ...

and

Ventana Wilderness The Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest is a federally designated wilderness area located in the Santa Lucia Range along the Central Coast of California. This wilderness was established in 1969 when the Ventana Wilderness Act redesig ...

. It is located between Mescal Ridge and Skinner Ridge. From Bottchers Gap, there is an long private access road that leads to

Camp Pico Blanco Camp Pico Blanco is an inactive camp of (originally ) in the interior region of Big Sur in Central California. It is operated by the Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council, of the Boy Scouts of America, a new council formed as a result of a merger ...

. Beginning at Bottchers Gap, it is a difficult hike via the Skinner Ridge and Ventana Double Cone trails to the

Ventana Double Cone The Ventana Double Cone at is one of the tallest peaks in the Ventana Wilderness within the Monterey Ranger District of the Los Padres National Forest in Central California. The summit is a difficult hike from the nearest trail head, making it o ...

, making it one of the more distant locations in the wilderness.

History

Native Americans

The area was first occupied by the

Esselen The Esselen are a Native American people belonging to a linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language family, who are indigenous to the Santa Lucia Mountains of a region south of the Big Sur River in Big Sur, Monterey County, Californi ...

indigenous people, who harvested acorns on the nearby mountain slopes. The area terrain is mostly steep, rocky, semi-arid except for the narrow canyons, and inaccessible, making long-term habitation a challenge. A large boulder with a dozen or more deep mortar bowls worn into it, known as a

bedrock mortar A bedrock mortar (BRM) is an anthropogenic circular depression in a rock outcrop or naturally occurring slab, used by people in the past for grinding of grain, acorns or other food products. There are often a cluster of a considerable number of ...

, is located in Apple Tree Camp on Turner Creek, southwest of Devil's Peak and northeast of Bottchers Gap. The holes were hollowed out over many generations by Indians who used it to grind the acorns into flour. Much of the native Indian population had been forced into the Spanish mission system by about 1822, when most of the interior villages within the current

were uninhabited.

Homestead

The camp is named for former homesteader John Gottfried Boettcher, a German immigrant who lived in a cabin on the site with his wife Pauline around 1885–90. He obtained two patents, one in 1888 for , and a second in 1890 for . Skinner Ridge and Skinner Creek are named for Benjamin R. Skinner, who homesteaded the land with his wife Adeline and obtained a patent in 1890 to 160 acres northwest of Bottcher's land. Turner Creek, north of Skinner's homestead, was homesteaded by George C. Turner in 1890. After filing a patent for a homestead, the settler had complete ownership after residing on the property for five years or after six months with payment of $1.50 per acre.

Guard Station

On July 23, 1948, the

Monterey Bay Area Council Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council (#055), the result of a council merger between the Santa Clara County Council and the Monterey Bay Area Council, is a Boy Scouts of America council headquartered in San Jose, California. In 2004, the previous t ...

of the Boy Scouts of America purchased on the North Fork of the

Little Sur River The Little Sur River is a long river on the Central Coast of California. The river and its main tributary, the South Fork, drain a watershed of about of the Big Sur area, a thinly settled region of the Central California coast where the Sant ...

from the Hearst Sunical Land and Packing Company for $20,000. The Palo Colorado Road ended at that time at a location locally known as the Hoist. The name came about because of the very steep road which during the turn of the century required wagon-loads of tanbark and lumber to be hoisted by block and tackle hitched to oxen. The old block and tackle is still chained to a massive log beam, now used to support mailboxes and labeled "The Hoist." The council contacted nearby

Fort Ord Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay of the Pacific Ocean coast in California, which closed in 1994 due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action. Most of the fort's land now makes up the Fort Ord National Monument, m ...

and contracted with the

United States Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

to extend the road to Bottchers Gap and an additional to the North Fork of the

and future site of Camp Pico Blanco. The Monterey Boy Scout Council spent about $200,000 (or about $ today) to extend the road to Bottchers Gap and into the camp area. The road to the Boy Scout camp traverses extremely steep terrain, necessitating four narrow switchbacks. The entire road into the central camp area was completed in the summer of 1951. The USFS Bottchers Gap Guard Station was built in 1950 along with the Double Cone Trail. The Bottchers Gap Forest Patrolman took supplies twice monthly by pack mules to the forest

fire lookout A fire lookout (partly also called a fire watcher) is a person assigned the duty to look for fire from atop a building known as a fire lookout tower. These towers are used in remote areas, normally on mountain tops with high elevation and a ...

on the

during the summer fire lookout season. The patrolman and the mule train usually spent one night of the trip at the old Comings Cabin.Sherman Comings, a descendant of a family who purchased property near Bottcher's Gap in 1927, says his family spelled the name "Boucher."

Geology

Bottcher's Gap sits in a notch between Mescal Ridge and Skinner Ridge formed by the Palo Colorado fault where it crosses the ridge. The east side of the fault in the gap is primarily an upthrown block of

quartz diorite Quartz diorite is an igneous, plutonic ( intrusive) rock, of felsic composition, with phaneritic texture. Feldspar is present as plagioclase (typically oligoclase or andesine) with 10% or less potassium feldspar. Quartz is present at between 5 and ...

, while the west side of the fault is composed mostly of metamorphic rocks including

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

and

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

. The fault-formed north fork of Little Sur River is located to the southeast, and the river flows along the fault for about before turning west towards the coast.

Facilities

The campground is at elevation in a saddle between two ridges among oaks and Madrone trees. There are 12 campsites with fire rings. The camp is managed by Camp One parks management company. A campground manager is usually hired to live on site. No reservations are required. Camp One charges a $20.00 per night per single family site for up to 6 people and 1 vehicle, $10.00 per extra person per night, and $10.00 extra vehicle charge (up to 2) per night. The day use fee is $10.00 per vehicle. Camp One more than doubled fees when they won the contract to manage the campground. In 2013, the camping fee was $5 for parking and day use. There used to be a water system fed by a tank uphill of the campground. The system was not maintained and is no longer usable. Visitors must bring their own water. There are good views of the

and

Pico Blanco Pico Blanco is a peak on the coast of Big Sur in the Santa Lucia Range of the Los Padres National Forest. The Little Sur River and its tributaries almost surround the mountain. The North Fork wraps around the northern flank and eastern edge of t ...

in the Santa Lucia Range to the south. The Skinner Ridge Trailhead (#1E04) is on the north side of the campground. The trail crosses over Devil's Peak and through Big Pines, Pat Springs, Little Pines, and Lone Pine camps. The entrance to Palo Colorado Road is south of Rio Road in

Carmel Valley, California Carmel Valley is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. The term "Carmel Valley" generally refers to the Carmel River watershed east of California State Route 1, and not specifically to the smaller Carmel V ...

Closure

The campground was closed when the

Soberanes Fire The Soberanes Fire was a large wildfire that burned 57 homes and killed a bulldozer operator, and cost about $260 million to suppress, making it at the time the most expensive wildfire to fight in United States history. The Soberanes Fire was ...

was started by campers who left a fire untended on July 22, 2016. The fire burned through Palo Colorado Canyon in less than two days, destroying 57 homes and 11 outbuildings in the Garrapata and Palo Colorado Canyon areas. The following winter Rocky Creek washed out the road, and additional slides and slip outs closed the road. Monterey County states that it does not have the funds to repair the road.