If Big Sur has one moment that defines the race, it's Hurricane Point — the long climb that arrives around mile 10 and gives the course its reputation for being harder than the net elevation numbers suggest. This guide is entirely about that one stretch: where it starts, why it's windy, how the race supports it, and how to actually run it.
Where the climb starts and ends
Hurricane Point begins around mile 10, after a short valley that follows the course's first real hill near the Point Sur Lighthouse, and climbs steadily for roughly two miles to its summit around mile 12 — the highest point on the entire course. The race's own course materials describe it as the longest hill on the route, with a gain in the neighborhood of 500 feet across those two miles. It isn't a single steep pitch; it's a long, sustained grade that doesn't offer much of a breather until the very top.
Why it's called that
The name isn't marketing. Hurricane Point is a headland that juts directly into the Pacific, and open headlands like it tend to funnel and accelerate coastal wind rather than block it. On a calm morning, the climb is simply a long hill. On a windy one, it can be genuinely brutal — a headwind strong enough to slow conversation and turn an otherwise manageable grade into one of the harder stretches in American road racing. Because the wind, not just the elevation, is what makes this section notorious, it's worth checking the forecast in the days before the race rather than assuming the climb will feel the way it did in someone else's race report.
Taiko drummers and the climb up
One of the course's best-known traditions sits about halfway up this climb, around mile 11: Taiko drummers, stationed on the hillside, playing as runners pass. It's a genuinely loud, physical jolt of energy on a stretch that otherwise has almost no crowd support — Highway 1 out here doesn't pass through any town — and most runners who've done the race name it as one of the highlights of the day, arriving at almost exactly the point where a lift is most needed.
How to actually run it
The standard advice from experienced Big Sur runners is to treat Hurricane Point as an effort-based climb rather than a pace-based one: let your split slow down and don't fight it, because trying to hold goal pace up a sustained, wind-exposed grade almost always costs more in the second half of the race than it saves here. Walking sections of the steepest parts is common and not treated as a failure by anyone who's actually run this course. The payoff for patience is real: cresting the summit opens up a long, winding descent toward Bixby Bridge, where — at roughly the race's halfway point — a grand piano is played live as the field comes through. Runners who saved something for the climb tend to actually enjoy that descent; runners who didn't tend to just survive it.
The cost of getting it wrong
Because Hurricane Point arrives relatively early — well before the physical wall that hits most marathoners in the final 10K — it's tempting to attack it while you still feel strong. That's exactly the mistake that shapes a lot of disappointing back halves at this race. The climb is long enough, and the second half of the course rolling enough, that cardiovascular reserves spent fighting the wind here are reserves you won't have for the Carmel Highlands later on. Treat it as the first real test of pacing discipline on the course, not the last hard part of the race.