Part of the road begins at a chain link fence at the existing stub in Montara and continues north to Martini Creek. When you come down here today and complain about a few earth-slides on Devil’s Slide, well, that’s nothing compared to that old Pedro Mountain Road." The road today It went around turns and more turns, hairpin turns, short turns, backward turns. One longtime coastside resident, Charlie Nye, Jr., recalled: "The road coming over Pedro Mountain was terrible, just awful. Nevertheless, the old routes are still accessible to hikers. A short stub of the highway is still in use in Montara, near the local nursery. In some places, the roadbed has washed out or been partially buried by landslides. This new routing replaced State Route 1 from 14th Street in Montara, to Rockaway Beach Avenue in Rockaway Beach (present day Pacifica) Portions of the crumbling pavement of Pedro Mountain Road can still be found between Montara and Pacifica. The next year in 1934 the highway would be signed as State Route 1 until the highway was rerouted along the Devil's Slide in 1937. In 1933, this section of roadway was coded into the highway system as Legislative Route 56. Eventually, when State Route 1 was completed, the state located most of the highway parallel to the right-of-way, even along the treacherous Devil's Slide. After the railroad ceased operations along the coast, the company was unable to reach a satisfactory agreement with the State of California to move the highway to the railroad's right-of-way. The Ocean Shore Railroad, which operated from 1907 to 1920, served as an alternative routing to the nearly impassible Half Moon Bay-Colma road routing. Hairpin turns called for “the coolest heads, firmest hands, and strongest brakes that a car can have.” This is supported by vintage photographs of the road. “Even with a thoroughly reliable driver and trustworthy car,” Motoring magazine warned in 1913, “Pedro Mountain Road is in such poor condition that anyone going this way is simply inviting disaster.” The danger was underscored by a large sign that read: “DANGEROUS FOR AUTOMOBILES-TAKE ROAD VIA SAN MATEO” Motorists who chose to ignore this sign encountered grades as steep as 25 percent in some places. Numerous accidents occurred on this dangerous road and some of the wrecked cars can still be found in ravines below the route. It was a narrow, steep, and winding road and reportedly was seldom in good condition. Many cyclists have taken to unofficially calling it `Planet of the Apes`. Remnants of this road are still passable to hikers, mountain bikers and horses and in the present day is called the 'Old Pedro Mountain Road'. From Octoto June 1937 another new (paved) routing, called Coastside Boulevard (Highway 57) was routed up from Higgins Road in Pacifica, rising back towards Saddle Pass, and was welcomed as a much more automobile accessible routing. The steepest sections of this routing were virtually impassible to automobiles, with a grading of 24%. From 1879 to 1914 the routing was changed entirely, called the Half Moon Bay - Colma Road, and transversed over the mountain closer to the ocean on very steep and rutted switchbacks from above the Shamrock Ranch towards Martini Creek. From 1848 until 1879 the routing, known as Road Trail, was changed to run east and west along the ridge of Pedro Mountain from Saddle Pass turning north and descending the ridge above Adobe Drive and on towards the Sanchez Adobe. ".on a very bad road up over a high mountain.though easily climbed on the way up, had a very hard abrupt descent on the opposite side." This routing today is known as Indian Trail, running up from Martini Creek, over Saddle Pass and down the ridge into the present day Willow Brook Estates in the Linda Mar district of Pacifica. The first historical record of the road crossing Pedro Mountain was in the journal of the Portola Expedition, October 1769.
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