Visitors are now able to access Esalen as well as other businesses and trails in northern Big Sur via twice-daily convoys on Highway 1 operated by Caltrans.
Convoys run only at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day. These are the only opportunities to travel into and out of Big Sur, so visitors must plan accordingly.



Ariel Johnson is an embodiment facilitator specializing in trauma-informed somatic practices. As a guide with Wildtender, Ariel supports participants to meaningfully immerse in the California wild, and to cultivate deeper relationships with the broader web of kinfolk. A practitioner of meditation and mindfulness practices, she is a dedicated student of Gestalt Awareness Practice in the lineage of Christine Price, as well as grief tending with Francis Weller. With extensive training in ballet and modern dance, yoga (E-RYT 500), and Gyrotonic Level 1, she helps students cultivate greater presence and intuition in their connections with self, community, and the earth-body. Ariel is a Wilderness First Responder.
Growing up in Japan, Washington, and California, Ariel inherited from her father a deep love of the natural world through camping and hiking. Now living with her family in Pacific Grove, California, she finds joy in studying natural history, literature, and Japanese tea ceremony.
Ariel Johnson (she/her) is an embodiment facilitator and certified psychedelic integration coach specializing in trauma-informed somatic practices. With extensive training in ballet/modern dance, yoga (E-RYT 500), and Gyrotonic Level 1, she helps students cultivate greater presence and intuition in their connections with self, community, and the earth-body.