Old Creek Road

After completing Signed County Route G14 I headed on California State Route 46 west of Paso Robles to Old Creek Road.

Old Creek Road is a short connecting route between CA 46 and CA 1. Old Creek Road is a somewhat infamous road in San Luis Obispo County that draws a lot of interest from motorcycle groups. Interestingly Old Creek Road not only has a junction with CA 46 but also Santa Rosa Creek Road which was a former alignment of CA 41 before the 1964 Highway Renumbering in addition to post 1964 CA 46.

Old Creek Road starts with a simple advisory sign that the next 5 miles are curvy which is an understatement.

From CA 46 Old Creek Road descends on a tall downhill grade from about 1,300 feet above sea level to 220 feet at the Whale Rock Reservoir. Old Creek Road is extremely narrow through this section and the road bed has deep groves to deter lane crossing.

The Whale Rock Reservoir was completed in 1961 and impound Old Creek. Its kind of strange to see a man-made lake floating above the Pacific Ocean which clearly can be seen not far to the west.

At the Whale Rock Reservoir the grade of Old Creek Road becomes far more shallow and it enters Cayucos where it terminates at CA 1.

Interestingly Old Creek Road has been around for quite a long time and probably was an even more useful road before CA 46 was realigned onto it's modern routing off Santa Rosa Creek Road. The alignment of Old Creek Road can clearly be seen on the 1935 California Division of Highways map of San Luis Obispo County. Interestingly it appears Old Creek Road used to run through what is now Whale Rock Reservoir onto 13th Street in Cayucos. I find it odd that Old Creek Road never received a Signed County Route designation given that it would have made for a decent addition to the system and is old enough to be exempt from modern width requirements.

1935 San Luis Obispo County Highway Map

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