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Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, A Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"Neely’s naturalist, erudite work will appeal to readers of Thoreau’s Walden and Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire." —Publishers Weekly
"Rich in little-known history. . . Up the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo county coasts, then inland into the Salinas Valley to Monterey Bay. Somewhere along here, the owl moons and woodpeckers do something you might not have thought possible in 2019: they make you fall, or refall, in love with California, ungrudgingly, wildfires and insane housing prices and all . . . What a journey, you think. What a state."—San Francisco Chronicle
In Alta California, Nick Neely chronicles his 650-mile trek on foot from San Diego to San Francisco, following the route of the first overland Spanish expedition into what was soon called Alta California. Led by Gaspar de Portolá in 1769, the expedition sketched a route that would become, in part, the famous El Camino Real. It laid the foundation for the Golden State we know today, a place that remains as mythical and captivating as any in the world.
Neely grew up in California but realized how little he knew about its history. So he set off to learn it bodily, with just a backpack and a tent, trekking through stretches of California both lonely and urban. For twelve weeks, following the journal of expedition missionary Father Juan Crespí, Neely kept pace with the ghosts of the Portolá expedition—nearly 250 years later
Weaving natural and human history, Alta California relives his adventure, tells a story of Native cultures and the Spanish missions that soon devastated them, and explores the evolution of California and its landscape. The result is a collage of historical and contemporary California, of lyricism and pedestrian serendipity, and of the biggest issues facing California today—water, agriculture, oil and gas, immigration, and development—all of it one step at a time.
432 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 9, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
April 27, 2020
Once you get through Neely's over abundance of adjectives at the beginning of the book, then all is well. A walk from San Diego to Palo Alto. A walk along some of my favorite roads in California. Many years ago I read about John Muir's walk from San Francisco to the Yosemite Valley, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Neely has topped it. His observations about California's modern history and well as his eye for beauty and nature make this an incredible read. Best California travelogue since Bill Barich's Big Dreams IMHO. Certainly this is a book I will return to in years to come.
December 20, 2020
I was not a happy camper while reading this book. I found it awfully slow and mostly dull reading. And I'm a history addict, so go figure. I would NOT compare it to a Bill Bryson book. There is no comparison! I inhale his books. There was no humor in Alta California, and maybe that was why it was such a tough job to get through. I would have quit early on if it were not a book club selection.
June 6, 2020
I enjoyed the descriptions of flora and fauna but the format gets a little tedious after a while. The prose feels forced and even flowery at times.
November 22, 2019
Come along for the walk, but let Nick do all the sweating, swearing, and death-defying stuff. It's a great adventure with an amazing narrative that pings you between the Franciscans' journey in 1769 and present day coastal California.
This books feels like having a great guide who knows all the cool details. Unless you've read the Fray Crespi diaries (me neither,) what you think you know about the Portola expedition is probably from fourth grade. Neely brings you up to date as he makes his way along the route, lions and mountains and rivers be damned. The same to locked gates, railroad trestles and skeptics who look sideways at scruffy foot travelers.
The history, the terrain and the folks along the ways are all illuminated for us in the most entertaining way. More than once I laughed out loud, but this isn't a romp by any means. It's a shortcut to understanding today's Golden State. And it's told in a voice that feels trustworthy, like one you've heard before - maybe around a campfire or out in the desert watching a meteor shower.
This books feels like having a great guide who knows all the cool details. Unless you've read the Fray Crespi diaries (me neither,) what you think you know about the Portola expedition is probably from fourth grade. Neely brings you up to date as he makes his way along the route, lions and mountains and rivers be damned. The same to locked gates, railroad trestles and skeptics who look sideways at scruffy foot travelers.
The history, the terrain and the folks along the ways are all illuminated for us in the most entertaining way. More than once I laughed out loud, but this isn't a romp by any means. It's a shortcut to understanding today's Golden State. And it's told in a voice that feels trustworthy, like one you've heard before - maybe around a campfire or out in the desert watching a meteor shower.
November 28, 2020
I loved this book, it was long but a meditative read. I love my great state of California and was able to visualize all the places he traveled. It was so interesting to learn of our history. This is a great read, especially for a Californian.
February 8, 2020
Alta California changes your perception and understanding of California, supplying rich history, details of flora and fauna, fascinating chance encounters with people and places along the route, and all of it grounded in a close recounting of the 'seminal journey' of the Portolá expedition of 1769. County by county, Neely follows the route of the Spanish explorers, but layers on his many observations and experiences, weaving an amazing trek that the reader feels she practically takes alongside him. This is a book that lingers in the mind, and one which I'm already looking forward to re-reading.
January 30, 2020
This book was a real treat to read. The amount of effort the author exerted to tell this story was commendable in its own right. As a Californian transplant from the east, I greatly enjoyed this book because of my interest in the Spanish history of California and my familiarity with many of the regions the El Camino traverses. Clearly Nick Neely was the perfect person to tell this unique story.
February 8, 2020
I could visualize so much of his walk as many of these areas are where I like to roam. I loved his attention to birds as well; how their presence is noted and is a form of companionship, especially when one is alone in the wilderness. Chatty bushtits always make me smile, too.
Great read for those who love this state.
Great read for those who love this state.
August 5, 2020
Insightful and Engaging
Having lived in Morro Bay and now spending time in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula, (where I pause at Crespi Pond on my daily morning constitutional), I was very interested to see this book about a hike along the Portola Trail from San Diego to San Francisco. But, you know, these walking/travel narratives can be awfully tricky. Some of my favorite authors are getting grumpy and judgmental, (I'm looking at you, Paul Theroux, and even sometimes you, Bill Bryson), and lots of younger authors spend way too much of my reading time working out their own daddy, mommy, divorce, or career issues. Not to worry here, though, because this author keeps his eye on the ball and his head in the game.
Neely is following the old Portola trail as best he can, and he has the explorers' original journals and notes for guidance. As you might imagine, everything has changed and yet much remains the same. The fun here is in describing the original trail, observing what still remains on the ground, and drawing comparisons. Neely is often rueful about how things have changed, but this is not an unrelieved gripefest and our author is surprisingly even handed. Neely seems to be sound on local cultures, and on natural and human history, which is the most you could ask for. Since he has most certainly done his homework, the facts, stories, insights, and sometimes whimsical or quixotic digressions he adds to the basic tour guide type material make this an especially engaging adventure.
And, after all, that is the point. This is armchair hiking - rocky ground, thirst, bugs, strange noises in the bushes, rain and all. Purely as a walking adventure this book is a rewarding and upbeat escape. Considered as a social and cultural history, the book offers an interesting view from the ground up. As it turns out, Neely is a fine companion and it was a pleasure to go on this walkabout with him.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
Having lived in Morro Bay and now spending time in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula, (where I pause at Crespi Pond on my daily morning constitutional), I was very interested to see this book about a hike along the Portola Trail from San Diego to San Francisco. But, you know, these walking/travel narratives can be awfully tricky. Some of my favorite authors are getting grumpy and judgmental, (I'm looking at you, Paul Theroux, and even sometimes you, Bill Bryson), and lots of younger authors spend way too much of my reading time working out their own daddy, mommy, divorce, or career issues. Not to worry here, though, because this author keeps his eye on the ball and his head in the game.
Neely is following the old Portola trail as best he can, and he has the explorers' original journals and notes for guidance. As you might imagine, everything has changed and yet much remains the same. The fun here is in describing the original trail, observing what still remains on the ground, and drawing comparisons. Neely is often rueful about how things have changed, but this is not an unrelieved gripefest and our author is surprisingly even handed. Neely seems to be sound on local cultures, and on natural and human history, which is the most you could ask for. Since he has most certainly done his homework, the facts, stories, insights, and sometimes whimsical or quixotic digressions he adds to the basic tour guide type material make this an especially engaging adventure.
And, after all, that is the point. This is armchair hiking - rocky ground, thirst, bugs, strange noises in the bushes, rain and all. Purely as a walking adventure this book is a rewarding and upbeat escape. Considered as a social and cultural history, the book offers an interesting view from the ground up. As it turns out, Neely is a fine companion and it was a pleasure to go on this walkabout with him.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
December 21, 2019
I had read a book not long ago that looked at the path of Junípero Serra as he founded various missions in what would become the state California and baptized thousands of Natives already living. Not sure how I found this book but it sounded something a bit similar (although this was retracing the path of a Spanish expedition that would someday draw the El Camino Real).
Neely takes the reader through various counties of California, retracing the steps of the expedition and exploring California is today: I found it hilarious he took the time to stop into the Legoland park (I have never been there) as well as describing the things he sees, some of the people he encounters and the like. He takes the reader county by county as it is today, talking about people, history, culture, etc.
Honestly? It was incredibly boring. Neely's writing isn't particularly engaging and I was disappointed there were no pictures. There are barely even any maps--just one for each county at the beginning of each leg of his trip.
This could have made for a spectacular coffee book with maps, art, photographs of what California looked like when this expedition first happened to what Neely saw along the way. Instead this was more appropriate for a journal or blog. Some people might like this type of travel writing but I'm glad I got this book at the library instead.
Personally would skip it unless you're a hiker or something who likes these types of books.
Neely takes the reader through various counties of California, retracing the steps of the expedition and exploring California is today: I found it hilarious he took the time to stop into the Legoland park (I have never been there) as well as describing the things he sees, some of the people he encounters and the like. He takes the reader county by county as it is today, talking about people, history, culture, etc.
Honestly? It was incredibly boring. Neely's writing isn't particularly engaging and I was disappointed there were no pictures. There are barely even any maps--just one for each county at the beginning of each leg of his trip.
This could have made for a spectacular coffee book with maps, art, photographs of what California looked like when this expedition first happened to what Neely saw along the way. Instead this was more appropriate for a journal or blog. Some people might like this type of travel writing but I'm glad I got this book at the library instead.
Personally would skip it unless you're a hiker or something who likes these types of books.
July 9, 2021
Mr Neely seems like a good fellow to share a beer with, and he’s a good-enough writer, but the book suffers from “I’ve got a book contract”-itis. It’s rather high-concept in other words. You could easily imagine him making the pitch to the publisher: “I’m going to walk the route of the 18th-century Portola expedition through coastal California and record my thoughts.”
But honestly what happens to him sheds no new light on the expedition, or the state of things in modern California, or the local wonders of nature. It’s affable but not really insightful or moving. It’s a diary of a really nice writer who had to finish his walk to get paid.
Also a not on the audio edition: lordy I know it’s pedantic to point this out but I counted maybe two dozen mispronunciations in the audiobook. PaDOOa is not the name of the town in Italy. The flume a log goes down is not a slooEESE but a sluice (rhymes with juice). Things that happen at different times are not asynCRONE-ous but aSYNchronous. The flower is not called HyAAAAsinth but HYacynth. Plus a whole bunch in Spanish (sereniSEEEMa).
But honestly what happens to him sheds no new light on the expedition, or the state of things in modern California, or the local wonders of nature. It’s affable but not really insightful or moving. It’s a diary of a really nice writer who had to finish his walk to get paid.
Also a not on the audio edition: lordy I know it’s pedantic to point this out but I counted maybe two dozen mispronunciations in the audiobook. PaDOOa is not the name of the town in Italy. The flume a log goes down is not a slooEESE but a sluice (rhymes with juice). Things that happen at different times are not asynCRONE-ous but aSYNchronous. The flower is not called HyAAAAsinth but HYacynth. Plus a whole bunch in Spanish (sereniSEEEMa).
January 10, 2020
I found this book to be a true gem. As with so many other travel narratives, this interweaves history with the present journey. The Portola Expedition is the route retraced on the long walk. However, the book waxes discursive on everything from a recycling plant to Hearst Castle to environmental concerns to RV encampments. The descriptions of natural phenomena are impeccable. The trek, incidentally, occurs in the three months leading up to the 2016 election, though the election is mentioned only rarely and obliquely.
August 11, 2020
I abandoned this one pretty early on. It's blandly loquacious, and only intermittently interesting, kind of like a long walk...I'd prefer taking the walk myself. I suspect the trouble is that the narrative seems stronger to me on the history than on the travelogue (though his deadpan descriptions of his trail travails, such as ants and no trespassing areas are both refreshing and informative), and I would have preferred the opposite formula, so that may account for my disdain.
It's a book worth checking out, but be prepared for a slog.
It's a book worth checking out, but be prepared for a slog.
May 25, 2021
Tough book to rate, for a mix of issues related to the book and to the genre.
First, the genre.
I think travelogue books in general, and through-hike subtype books in particular, have a pretty high ceiling to get a fifth star and I'm not grading on the curve. They ultimately, unless they're great descriptors, are in part personal psychology/discovery tomes, and in cases such as Cheryl Strayed, usually don't grab me there.
On the actual through-hiking? Neely himself says that, eventually, one range of hills becomes another.
Now, to this book in particular.
Like some others, I found Neely's writing breathless, flowery, even over the top at the times. Contra Publisher's Weekly, this ain't CLOSE to Desert Solitaire.
Then, there's Neely's lack of preparedness in some ways. Hitting Camp Pendleton, Hunter Liggett, Vandenberg AFB, a nuke power plant site and elsewhere and not being prepared in advance for detours, or having called in advance to see if there were ANY possibility he could hike through? Inexcusable. It's kind of funny that he actually gets ticketed and fined for trespassing in a protected area of a state beach. This is even more true, the preparedness issue, when he's not only past 35, but is married and hoping to have a kid soon, as of the time of writing.
Third, the birding and other stuff? Nice, or more "nice," especially without pix. I don't know if the hardback version was any better, but that was a major failing. (I read the paperback, bought at the bookstore in Borrego Springs.) Whether it was pix of the birds, or remains of one of the missions at the ostensible heart of this story or whatever, travel books or nature books that are stingy on pix will likely loose a star right there.
Related? The maps were also more "nice" than nice. For a book this size and heft, at least a few more professionally cartographic ones actually would have been nice.
OK, to the better.
I did learn a fair amount of things about the Portolá journey I hadn't known before. Stuff about mission-Indian interactions? Other than vignette details, not new to me.
The best part, overall, was actually (and sadly) the observations on homelessness in California, such as collections of 30-year-old RVs at state parks, or a guy only (he said) getting $1K a month Social Security because of working under the table too much. (Would have to have been a LOT of working under the table, I think.)
So, in that sense of rediscovering the Golden State, and the amount of semi-retiree semi-homelessness (why the under-the-table guy wasn't renting a small apt I don't know), this was thoughtful.
And, so, Neely wrote the wrong book, if that's its best part. He still has a chance to redeem himself, as the Golden State has looked even more like dross through COVID. And, there's the issue of why the non-rich semi-retirees aren't decamping for Texas, or New Mexico, or Nevada, or whatever, where their money will go enough further they don't have to live in a 30-year-old RV on the beach.
First, the genre.
I think travelogue books in general, and through-hike subtype books in particular, have a pretty high ceiling to get a fifth star and I'm not grading on the curve. They ultimately, unless they're great descriptors, are in part personal psychology/discovery tomes, and in cases such as Cheryl Strayed, usually don't grab me there.
On the actual through-hiking? Neely himself says that, eventually, one range of hills becomes another.
Now, to this book in particular.
Like some others, I found Neely's writing breathless, flowery, even over the top at the times. Contra Publisher's Weekly, this ain't CLOSE to Desert Solitaire.
Then, there's Neely's lack of preparedness in some ways. Hitting Camp Pendleton, Hunter Liggett, Vandenberg AFB, a nuke power plant site and elsewhere and not being prepared in advance for detours, or having called in advance to see if there were ANY possibility he could hike through? Inexcusable. It's kind of funny that he actually gets ticketed and fined for trespassing in a protected area of a state beach. This is even more true, the preparedness issue, when he's not only past 35, but is married and hoping to have a kid soon, as of the time of writing.
Third, the birding and other stuff? Nice, or more "nice," especially without pix. I don't know if the hardback version was any better, but that was a major failing. (I read the paperback, bought at the bookstore in Borrego Springs.) Whether it was pix of the birds, or remains of one of the missions at the ostensible heart of this story or whatever, travel books or nature books that are stingy on pix will likely loose a star right there.
Related? The maps were also more "nice" than nice. For a book this size and heft, at least a few more professionally cartographic ones actually would have been nice.
OK, to the better.
I did learn a fair amount of things about the Portolá journey I hadn't known before. Stuff about mission-Indian interactions? Other than vignette details, not new to me.
The best part, overall, was actually (and sadly) the observations on homelessness in California, such as collections of 30-year-old RVs at state parks, or a guy only (he said) getting $1K a month Social Security because of working under the table too much. (Would have to have been a LOT of working under the table, I think.)
So, in that sense of rediscovering the Golden State, and the amount of semi-retiree semi-homelessness (why the under-the-table guy wasn't renting a small apt I don't know), this was thoughtful.
And, so, Neely wrote the wrong book, if that's its best part. He still has a chance to redeem himself, as the Golden State has looked even more like dross through COVID. And, there's the issue of why the non-rich semi-retirees aren't decamping for Texas, or New Mexico, or Nevada, or whatever, where their money will go enough further they don't have to live in a 30-year-old RV on the beach.
January 23, 2021
Interesting account of the author's walk from San Diego to San Francisco. However, it's very apparent (though not to the author) the privilege he had to be able to complete this trip. As a white man, he was able to trespass on private property, camp along the road, hitchhike, etc. and was always given the benefit of the doubt. If he had been Black, he likely would have been arrested in San Diego. If he were female, he would have faced actual or threatened violence. If he had a disability, this trip likely wouldn't have been possible at all, since the infrastructure (e.g. public transportation) is so limited. I'm not begrudging Neely his trip, just wish he had recognized his advantages and used his voice to advocate for others.
May 3, 2020
A modern day exploration of California following in the footsteps of Portola's 1769 expedition.
An engaging read about the authors hike from San Diego to San Francisco following, as closely as is possible today, the Portola's 1769 expedition up the state of California. If you like travel journals or enjoy learning about California History, this is a very worthwhile read. Nick Neely really seems to have researched thoroughly, and he does a great describing many aspects of the state of the lands today while sprinkling in tidbits of history and insight from observations of those early explorers. It was interesting reading and learning about the indigenous Californias as well as the wildlife that abounded throughout California. Especially interesting was insight on the California Grizzlies that use to be so abundant and are now extinct.
An engaging read about the authors hike from San Diego to San Francisco following, as closely as is possible today, the Portola's 1769 expedition up the state of California. If you like travel journals or enjoy learning about California History, this is a very worthwhile read. Nick Neely really seems to have researched thoroughly, and he does a great describing many aspects of the state of the lands today while sprinkling in tidbits of history and insight from observations of those early explorers. It was interesting reading and learning about the indigenous Californias as well as the wildlife that abounded throughout California. Especially interesting was insight on the California Grizzlies that use to be so abundant and are now extinct.
November 2, 2021
I enjoyed walking up the beautiful coast of California with this author through time, history and geological shifts. He offers subtle insights of a California starting to reconcile its colonizing history, deal with climate change and move into the future with these fault lines. You could make a drinking game out of all the instances where he points out and describes the liter-al garbage he sees along the way.
(Audible version - I walked as he talked about his walk! Very meta!)
(Audible version - I walked as he talked about his walk! Very meta!)
May 5, 2023
WHEN I FIRST STARTED THIS BOOK I THOUGHT IT WAS LOADED WITH SO MANY DETAILS IT WAS GOING TO BE TOO MUCH. I LOOKED AT THE BOOK AND DECIDED TO READ FROM THE COUNTIES I WAS FAMILIAR WITH. THE COUTY I AM IN AND CLOSE ONES. THEN I READ BACK TO BEGINNING.THIS BOOK HAS DESCRIPTIONS OF EVERYTHING!!!!!!HE NOT ONLY WRITES ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE AREA HES HIKING THROUGH BUT TELL THE DIARY OF PORTOLA AT SAME TIME. HE WRITES ABOUT MISSIONS AND PADRES AND NATIVES. HE VISITS A LOT OF THE MISSIONS.HE DESCRIBES ALL THE ANIMALS,TREES.WATER. A LOT OF BIRDS. HE REALLY DESCRIBES THE HISTORICAL SITES HE STOPS AT. HE TELLS ABOUT HOW EARLY PEOPLE FELT EARTHQUAKES THEY TOLD ABOUT IN DIARY. GOOD BOOK FOR HISTORY.
December 21, 2020
“I thought that plodding through our cities and suburbs on a forgotten, but foundational, transect would be the best way to truly see what’s become of what we call California, to discover its wild and feral interstices, to immerse myself in the ceaseless detail of landscape, and to confront out past and present head on. Time, I have come to believe, is the one true wilderness. The Portola and Crespi expedition of 1769 is the seminal moment in California’s history. Coastal California is also home to more species of flora and fauna than any other region its size in North America, and it hosts more than a quarter of all plants found north of Mexico, not least the giant redwoods.”
“It was a red tide welling up. You could not look into it without thinking of the blood of California’s natives, soaked in the alluvia of this creek, and of the blood of Christ, which swept through this region to bury them.”
Epic in scope and incredibly detailed, so detailed you can’t help but be awed by the author’s recall and wonder how he managed to do so, but maybe over done in detail? His scope was fantastic in every way: encompassing history, ecology, colonialism and genocide (which I almost cried about because so many so-called adventurers gloss over it), literature, immigration, agriculture, human and wildlife encounters, trespassing, the sky, the land and anything else he could think of. Just stunningly epic. He did not write about every step he took, but close, and I wonder if the book would have been more engrossing if he chose, say, 100 of the most important areas instead of 300. I didn’t count how many he wrote about, but it was a lot.
He acknowledges the pain of following the expedition to native tribes of the area, and even meets up with an indigenous group on a symbolic run and decided not to tell them his quest, knowing what was to follow:
“By 1801 all of the native San Francisco Peninsula people had joined Mission Dolores,” and about eighty percent of the population had died. By 1850 only about five Ramaytush families survived. The near complete destruction of the Ramaytush resulted in large part from disease, and poor living and working conditions at the mission. At Mission Dolores average life expectancy after baptism was only four years. The high rates of death inevitably destroyed tribal communities and tribal culture.
The Mexican Secularization Act of 1833 granted only a few mission Indians land, but the vast majority of natives fled the missions and became an exploited laboring class on Spanish and Mexican ranchos across the State. “While missionization destroyed populations and dismantled families and tribes, secularization dispersed the remaining Indians.” Jonathan Cordero, one of the last surviving descendant of the Ramaytush Ohlone tribe.
The book doesn’t necessarily address it, but it made me think about modern day expeditions and how they have to navigate the ethical line and who draws that line. I was reading In Search of the Canary Tree by Lauren Oakes (who lives in Portola Valley named after the Portola of the expedition) where the author grew up) at the same time, about an expedition to the Alexander Archipelago in coastal Alaska surveying yellow cypress trees that are dying, and was that expedition okay since colonizers weren’t to follow her? Science and research are troubling to native peoples with the history of annihilation, and I think both Neely and Oakes, while on different quests, understand that and bring humility with them.
Here is a link to a map I found online of his route, and I read closely the places I know so well, like the La Brea tar pits that I lived a few blocks away from in LA, Big Sur where he camped overlooking the Pacific in an amazing spot and walked Sand Dollar Beach, San Simeon and Hearst Castle, and some of the backroads through farmlands.
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/a...
Overall, fascinating and thorough view of California, a place I always keep in my heart and that pours through me as the author says, from living in LA and San Francisco as well as Big Sur visits these many years, only about 19 hours from Denver. Some bonus photos taken by me at the end of review for fun.
An Italian linguist encouraged Tac, a young Luiseno brought to Rome at 12 years old, to write a dictionary, but he got only as far as the C’s. It’s believed he wrote his short treatise, “Conversion of the San Luisenos of Alta California,” when he first arrived, and it is a captivating document, though not entirely trustworthy. Tac is relaying stories handed down to him, and the Catholic propaganda had already done its work. He waxes lyrical about the mission’s founding: “This was that happy day in which we saw white people…O merciful God, why did Thou leave us for many centuries, year, months, and days in utter darkness after Thou camest to the world?”
A Gatorade bottle, no label, stream-worn, in Sespe Creek wash, which was filled with reddish sands and silt. Apparently there are rosy sandstone boulders in the mountains from which the Sespe runs, first west to east through the high wilderness and then south. Plastic, I’ve noticed, scuffs rather than polishing like stone. It seems I had begun to stop differentiating between animal, plant and trash. They’re all worth cataloguing. They all travel the same waterways.
I paused on the Buena Vista Street Viaduct and looked into the Los Angeles River, not far downstream from its confluence with Arroyo Seco, which Crespi describes as having an even wider gravel bed and dead trees. “On either side of the river, there are very large, very green bottomlands, seeming from afar to be cornfields because of their greenness.” Now there was concrete. Running straight as an arrow north to south, the flood control channel was like a six-lane highway, its slanted banks painted with white squares, graffiti ghosts, with a ragged land of water down the middle, green with algae. That drove it home for me: a river is the flow itself, not its bed. It is the ceaseless or intermittent water that doesn’t care what surface it is given, though the whole ecosystem suffers if only concrete.
They chose northward, since the Santa Monica Mountains at Pacific Palisades and Malibu were, for many years into the future, impassable, too sheer. Instead they climbed up the future Sepulveda Pass pas the future Getty Museum on the future 405. “The mountains through which we were passing are quite high and rather steep; however, very grass grown on all sides with large sycamores, large live oaks, and white oaks and also with great many small walnut trees laden with quantities of small round nuts.” They crossed the future Mulholland Drive at the crest, descending into Encino in the San Fernando Valley, where they found two villages near a large spring pool: “a large one, with turtles in it, and a great deal of tule-rush patches and swamps around it; it is of hot water, very good and pure when cooled.”
The Santa Maria Valley is one of the great agricultural valleys of California, which means it’s one of the great agricultural valleys of the world. To be amid so much flat cropland: your location changes but never seems to. The hills rotate around you as if you were the center, the sun, the god of some universe. A second later you feel smaller than ever, and hungry. My shadow with its big brimmed hat cast itself on quivering lettuce and broccoli as if it were already inside me.
A grizzly can run as fast as a steed for a short distance…It’s estimated that ten thousand once lived in California, often roaming in a pack-a sloth, a maul, a sleuth, as groups of bears are called- along the coast, where they grew larger on the year-round abundance and had no need to hibernate. They preferred precisely the plain that the Portola expedition was scouting: grasslands or valleys with ample water, with fish like steelhead and salmon, and roots for digging. They also ate acorns and overturned logs in oak woodlands for grubs or wandered through the chaparral mosaic, which along with the grasslands, was maintained by the fires set by the natives. As fire was suppressed and the landscape was quickly transformed, bears were pushed into more remote and punishing territory. In San Luis Obispo County, in the 1840’s, one hunter is said to have killed two hundred grizzlies in a single season. The final recorded grizzly in San Diego country that weighed over fourteen hundred pounds was shot in 1899 near San Mateo Creek, which I had trailed up Cristianitos Canyon. The California grizzly often weighed more than a half-ton, unlike Yellowstone’s grizzlies, which are in the four-hundred-pound range. In 1924. The last grizzly sighting in California occurred in the high elevations of Sequoia National Park.
My adventure had been incredible. I had a month still to go and could hardly imagine experiencing another month, because California was pouring through me. I was seeing so many things I’d never seen before, and at the same time I realized I was seeing everything through my particular lens. Time was moving so slowly, because I was encountering so much. Or maybe it was fast, I didn’t’ know. One of the two.
Crespi never mentioned kelp in his journals, but it was one of “the Signs” by which the Spanish trade galleons retuning from the Philippines knew the continent was near and it was time to tack south for Acapulco.
The best part of Hearst Castle is the panorama beyond the guest houses, through the yucca stalks. The driveway meanders down the ridge to San Simeon Point, set within the gilded, retina-burning Pacific. All of the land you see once belonged to Hearst, though, in 2004, California bought most of the ranch’s development rights for 80 million in cash and 15 million in tax credits, while opening most of its thirteen-mile shoreline to the public. This was a win for conservationists, since in 1965 the Hearsts had proposed building a city of sixty-five thousand people.
An hour out of King City, I came across some onions, at least a quarter million. They glowed like grounded paper lanterns in their long rows where they’d been turned up and left to cure. The wind shook their skins and stalks, whisking parchment scraps to a fallow field to the south. What a bowl of soup you make from these, I thought. The field was like a ballroom floor strewn with marbles. It begged and begged for metaphor. Kelp looked like onions to early sailors, and in turn, these onions reminded me of those kelp wreaths and their bulbs hurled onto the beach, knotted heaps, in need of untangling. Or each one was a mountain range like the one beyond it sweeping north, which itself was a braided rope, folds of tans and greens…The whole world could be seen in these onions or a single one.
THESE ABALONE SHELLS REPRESENT THE MANY HUNDREDS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES BURIED IN THIS GRAVEYARD AND BEYOND. Standing there, I thought about how these symbolic graves were tucked off to the side rather than set prominently along the church’s front walkway and lush garden. A garden where, four days after Junipero Serra’s canonization in 2015, his likeness here was toppled, with the writing, “Saint of Genocide” on the statue’s base. I thought about how the natives and the neophytes might have instead, or also been represented by white marble stone in the chapel’s floor beside the padres. I thought about how abalone, which Crespi described as “a sort of limpet” and which the natives traded as mother-of-pearl, are now difficult to come by on the West Coast, at least sizable ones, because they’ve been so poached. And I thought how, to accurately symbolize the losses of early California (native peoples), these prismatic shells would have to ring the mission for miles around and far beyond.
Some years ago, I first encountered Crespi’s expedition journals while looking into hoe the madrone got its name. I knew this tree well as a kid. We called it the refrigerator tree because its trunk is cool to the touch even in summer: cold sap courses just below its nearly translucent russet skin. Crespi, I learned, was the first to write of this tree, comparing it to a closely related species in Spain, el madrono, the strawberry tree we now have in our parks and mission gardens.
FROM THIS RIDGE, THE PORTOLA EXPEDITION DISCOVERED SAN FRANCISCO BAY (was inscribed on the historical marker). When the expedition crested, they would have seen smoke columns rising from dozens or hundreds of villages along the bay’s edges and in the folds of its canyons. Seventeen thousand Ohlone, Miwok, and in the far north bay, Wappo lived in the Bay Area. It was already a metropolis by the standards of California at the time. Now, 7 million people live around the Bay, nearly a 450-fold increase… This was it. The view. The inland sea and the real one. The Farallones laid bare at last, silhouetted, a light flashing on the southeast island- the 1855 lighthouse. Mount Tamalpais turned slate blue in Marin. Wispy cirrus on the horizon held the sun a little longer as it descended over the curve of the earth, though really it was me, us, North America, revolving east at a thousand miles per hour.
Gilded, retina burning Pacific:
Coastline near San Simeon:
Typical chaparral habitat:
“It was a red tide welling up. You could not look into it without thinking of the blood of California’s natives, soaked in the alluvia of this creek, and of the blood of Christ, which swept through this region to bury them.”
Epic in scope and incredibly detailed, so detailed you can’t help but be awed by the author’s recall and wonder how he managed to do so, but maybe over done in detail? His scope was fantastic in every way: encompassing history, ecology, colonialism and genocide (which I almost cried about because so many so-called adventurers gloss over it), literature, immigration, agriculture, human and wildlife encounters, trespassing, the sky, the land and anything else he could think of. Just stunningly epic. He did not write about every step he took, but close, and I wonder if the book would have been more engrossing if he chose, say, 100 of the most important areas instead of 300. I didn’t count how many he wrote about, but it was a lot.
He acknowledges the pain of following the expedition to native tribes of the area, and even meets up with an indigenous group on a symbolic run and decided not to tell them his quest, knowing what was to follow:
“By 1801 all of the native San Francisco Peninsula people had joined Mission Dolores,” and about eighty percent of the population had died. By 1850 only about five Ramaytush families survived. The near complete destruction of the Ramaytush resulted in large part from disease, and poor living and working conditions at the mission. At Mission Dolores average life expectancy after baptism was only four years. The high rates of death inevitably destroyed tribal communities and tribal culture.
The Mexican Secularization Act of 1833 granted only a few mission Indians land, but the vast majority of natives fled the missions and became an exploited laboring class on Spanish and Mexican ranchos across the State. “While missionization destroyed populations and dismantled families and tribes, secularization dispersed the remaining Indians.” Jonathan Cordero, one of the last surviving descendant of the Ramaytush Ohlone tribe.
The book doesn’t necessarily address it, but it made me think about modern day expeditions and how they have to navigate the ethical line and who draws that line. I was reading In Search of the Canary Tree by Lauren Oakes (who lives in Portola Valley named after the Portola of the expedition) where the author grew up) at the same time, about an expedition to the Alexander Archipelago in coastal Alaska surveying yellow cypress trees that are dying, and was that expedition okay since colonizers weren’t to follow her? Science and research are troubling to native peoples with the history of annihilation, and I think both Neely and Oakes, while on different quests, understand that and bring humility with them.
Here is a link to a map I found online of his route, and I read closely the places I know so well, like the La Brea tar pits that I lived a few blocks away from in LA, Big Sur where he camped overlooking the Pacific in an amazing spot and walked Sand Dollar Beach, San Simeon and Hearst Castle, and some of the backroads through farmlands.
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/a...
Overall, fascinating and thorough view of California, a place I always keep in my heart and that pours through me as the author says, from living in LA and San Francisco as well as Big Sur visits these many years, only about 19 hours from Denver. Some bonus photos taken by me at the end of review for fun.
An Italian linguist encouraged Tac, a young Luiseno brought to Rome at 12 years old, to write a dictionary, but he got only as far as the C’s. It’s believed he wrote his short treatise, “Conversion of the San Luisenos of Alta California,” when he first arrived, and it is a captivating document, though not entirely trustworthy. Tac is relaying stories handed down to him, and the Catholic propaganda had already done its work. He waxes lyrical about the mission’s founding: “This was that happy day in which we saw white people…O merciful God, why did Thou leave us for many centuries, year, months, and days in utter darkness after Thou camest to the world?”
A Gatorade bottle, no label, stream-worn, in Sespe Creek wash, which was filled with reddish sands and silt. Apparently there are rosy sandstone boulders in the mountains from which the Sespe runs, first west to east through the high wilderness and then south. Plastic, I’ve noticed, scuffs rather than polishing like stone. It seems I had begun to stop differentiating between animal, plant and trash. They’re all worth cataloguing. They all travel the same waterways.
I paused on the Buena Vista Street Viaduct and looked into the Los Angeles River, not far downstream from its confluence with Arroyo Seco, which Crespi describes as having an even wider gravel bed and dead trees. “On either side of the river, there are very large, very green bottomlands, seeming from afar to be cornfields because of their greenness.” Now there was concrete. Running straight as an arrow north to south, the flood control channel was like a six-lane highway, its slanted banks painted with white squares, graffiti ghosts, with a ragged land of water down the middle, green with algae. That drove it home for me: a river is the flow itself, not its bed. It is the ceaseless or intermittent water that doesn’t care what surface it is given, though the whole ecosystem suffers if only concrete.
They chose northward, since the Santa Monica Mountains at Pacific Palisades and Malibu were, for many years into the future, impassable, too sheer. Instead they climbed up the future Sepulveda Pass pas the future Getty Museum on the future 405. “The mountains through which we were passing are quite high and rather steep; however, very grass grown on all sides with large sycamores, large live oaks, and white oaks and also with great many small walnut trees laden with quantities of small round nuts.” They crossed the future Mulholland Drive at the crest, descending into Encino in the San Fernando Valley, where they found two villages near a large spring pool: “a large one, with turtles in it, and a great deal of tule-rush patches and swamps around it; it is of hot water, very good and pure when cooled.”
The Santa Maria Valley is one of the great agricultural valleys of California, which means it’s one of the great agricultural valleys of the world. To be amid so much flat cropland: your location changes but never seems to. The hills rotate around you as if you were the center, the sun, the god of some universe. A second later you feel smaller than ever, and hungry. My shadow with its big brimmed hat cast itself on quivering lettuce and broccoli as if it were already inside me.
A grizzly can run as fast as a steed for a short distance…It’s estimated that ten thousand once lived in California, often roaming in a pack-a sloth, a maul, a sleuth, as groups of bears are called- along the coast, where they grew larger on the year-round abundance and had no need to hibernate. They preferred precisely the plain that the Portola expedition was scouting: grasslands or valleys with ample water, with fish like steelhead and salmon, and roots for digging. They also ate acorns and overturned logs in oak woodlands for grubs or wandered through the chaparral mosaic, which along with the grasslands, was maintained by the fires set by the natives. As fire was suppressed and the landscape was quickly transformed, bears were pushed into more remote and punishing territory. In San Luis Obispo County, in the 1840’s, one hunter is said to have killed two hundred grizzlies in a single season. The final recorded grizzly in San Diego country that weighed over fourteen hundred pounds was shot in 1899 near San Mateo Creek, which I had trailed up Cristianitos Canyon. The California grizzly often weighed more than a half-ton, unlike Yellowstone’s grizzlies, which are in the four-hundred-pound range. In 1924. The last grizzly sighting in California occurred in the high elevations of Sequoia National Park.
My adventure had been incredible. I had a month still to go and could hardly imagine experiencing another month, because California was pouring through me. I was seeing so many things I’d never seen before, and at the same time I realized I was seeing everything through my particular lens. Time was moving so slowly, because I was encountering so much. Or maybe it was fast, I didn’t’ know. One of the two.
Crespi never mentioned kelp in his journals, but it was one of “the Signs” by which the Spanish trade galleons retuning from the Philippines knew the continent was near and it was time to tack south for Acapulco.
The best part of Hearst Castle is the panorama beyond the guest houses, through the yucca stalks. The driveway meanders down the ridge to San Simeon Point, set within the gilded, retina-burning Pacific. All of the land you see once belonged to Hearst, though, in 2004, California bought most of the ranch’s development rights for 80 million in cash and 15 million in tax credits, while opening most of its thirteen-mile shoreline to the public. This was a win for conservationists, since in 1965 the Hearsts had proposed building a city of sixty-five thousand people.
An hour out of King City, I came across some onions, at least a quarter million. They glowed like grounded paper lanterns in their long rows where they’d been turned up and left to cure. The wind shook their skins and stalks, whisking parchment scraps to a fallow field to the south. What a bowl of soup you make from these, I thought. The field was like a ballroom floor strewn with marbles. It begged and begged for metaphor. Kelp looked like onions to early sailors, and in turn, these onions reminded me of those kelp wreaths and their bulbs hurled onto the beach, knotted heaps, in need of untangling. Or each one was a mountain range like the one beyond it sweeping north, which itself was a braided rope, folds of tans and greens…The whole world could be seen in these onions or a single one.
THESE ABALONE SHELLS REPRESENT THE MANY HUNDREDS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES BURIED IN THIS GRAVEYARD AND BEYOND. Standing there, I thought about how these symbolic graves were tucked off to the side rather than set prominently along the church’s front walkway and lush garden. A garden where, four days after Junipero Serra’s canonization in 2015, his likeness here was toppled, with the writing, “Saint of Genocide” on the statue’s base. I thought about how the natives and the neophytes might have instead, or also been represented by white marble stone in the chapel’s floor beside the padres. I thought about how abalone, which Crespi described as “a sort of limpet” and which the natives traded as mother-of-pearl, are now difficult to come by on the West Coast, at least sizable ones, because they’ve been so poached. And I thought how, to accurately symbolize the losses of early California (native peoples), these prismatic shells would have to ring the mission for miles around and far beyond.
Some years ago, I first encountered Crespi’s expedition journals while looking into hoe the madrone got its name. I knew this tree well as a kid. We called it the refrigerator tree because its trunk is cool to the touch even in summer: cold sap courses just below its nearly translucent russet skin. Crespi, I learned, was the first to write of this tree, comparing it to a closely related species in Spain, el madrono, the strawberry tree we now have in our parks and mission gardens.
FROM THIS RIDGE, THE PORTOLA EXPEDITION DISCOVERED SAN FRANCISCO BAY (was inscribed on the historical marker). When the expedition crested, they would have seen smoke columns rising from dozens or hundreds of villages along the bay’s edges and in the folds of its canyons. Seventeen thousand Ohlone, Miwok, and in the far north bay, Wappo lived in the Bay Area. It was already a metropolis by the standards of California at the time. Now, 7 million people live around the Bay, nearly a 450-fold increase… This was it. The view. The inland sea and the real one. The Farallones laid bare at last, silhouetted, a light flashing on the southeast island- the 1855 lighthouse. Mount Tamalpais turned slate blue in Marin. Wispy cirrus on the horizon held the sun a little longer as it descended over the curve of the earth, though really it was me, us, North America, revolving east at a thousand miles per hour.
Gilded, retina burning Pacific:
Coastline near San Simeon:
Typical chaparral habitat:
June 14, 2020
As a native Californian I loved my walkabout, reminded me of grade school and learning about the missions. Very familiar with the land he covered, excellent history and research, my husband listened too and we both commented how what we learned in the fifties and sixties is a far cry from reality. I named my cat after junipero serra, I must say in 15 years I have not come across him once in all my reading, this book has me questioning my choice. If you are a Californian and enjoy history I think you will love this book.
May 22, 2020
The author Neely chronicles a 650 mile hike in California from San Diego to San Francisco, following the route of the first Spanish journey about 250 years ago. He defined the foundation of the state of California which provided me a deeper understanding, as I grew up in San Diego and lived in California for many years. For me, the text was quite intense and required some very brief research inquires to learn more about the items of nature and some of the humanity history he discussed. The story he told was an engaging read. 4 stars.
March 31, 2020
In this fascinating book, the author chronicles his walk from San Diego to San Francisco, generally following the path of Spanish explorers Portola and Vizcaino. I learned a great deal about California history, which is woven into the daily narrative. An excellent read for anyone interested in California. It was fun reading about places I’ve lived or visited, but you can enjoy this book even if you’ve never been to the Golden State.
January 24, 2021
Well-intentioned, maddeningly flowery. Neely tries to be Anthony Horowitz and falls well short. This was a tough book to push through. He does get better last the first quarter, although his love of cheap bathroom humor and unnecessary anatomical detail never fades. Expect to know a great deal about the fast food he consumes as well as details about his piss. His words. Not mine.
Neely’s quest is genuinely impressive. I wish he’d married the narratives better, wish he’d tried to be less profound, and wish he’d checked a certain amount of white entitlement at the door. He writes eloquently and respectfully of Native Californians but is furious and nastily misogynistic when a female ranger issues him a ticket for knowingly sneaking into a wildlife refuge, for Neely believes that he is above the rules. Not once, as he camps illegally and breaks a host of rules, does he ask how his journey been different had he been anything but white.
There was a great deal to dislike about this book. I kept a running list of the bathroom humor (“nice snake”, “flittering wind through my arm hair”), the ridiculous adjectives (soaring tomato spirals of the Golden Gate - really?!). That said, Neely has genuinely illuminated a foundational period in our history and tied it to nostalgic and familiar geography. For this insight I am pleased to have made this journey with him throughout this book.
Neely’s quest is genuinely impressive. I wish he’d married the narratives better, wish he’d tried to be less profound, and wish he’d checked a certain amount of white entitlement at the door. He writes eloquently and respectfully of Native Californians but is furious and nastily misogynistic when a female ranger issues him a ticket for knowingly sneaking into a wildlife refuge, for Neely believes that he is above the rules. Not once, as he camps illegally and breaks a host of rules, does he ask how his journey been different had he been anything but white.
There was a great deal to dislike about this book. I kept a running list of the bathroom humor (“nice snake”, “flittering wind through my arm hair”), the ridiculous adjectives (soaring tomato spirals of the Golden Gate - really?!). That said, Neely has genuinely illuminated a foundational period in our history and tied it to nostalgic and familiar geography. For this insight I am pleased to have made this journey with him throughout this book.
October 1, 2020
If you like Bill Bryson and Tony Horwitz, and are looking for another white male writer who walks long distances while reconciling with the legacy of racial discrimination that shaped the landscape, you might enjoy Neely's trek following the path of the conquistador Gaspar de Portola from San Diego to San Francisco. The most interesting pieces of his walk occur when he takes the time to stop and converse with the farm laborers and packers during their breaks from the fields that stretch alongside California's highways. While Neely does confront the racist systems that built the Spanish missions, he is silent regarding any mention of the white privilege he is able to take advantage of throughout his journey as he meanders through suburban neighborhoods, trespasses and camps on private property, and hitchhikes through Big Sur without any fear of landowners or law enforcement. In the age of Black Lives Matter, it is not enough for white writers to acknowledge the racist systems of the past. They should also use their agency to confront the current discrimination that enables them to have a voice when so many do not.
April 29, 2020
Nick Neely '03, has written a travel journal that is part natural history, part California history and all engrossing narrative of a walk from San Diego to San Francisco in the footsteps of the Portola Expedition of 1769. Along the way he meets birds, mountain lions and interesting people, teaches us about native plants, Native American lore and local geology and has quite an adventure. Using journals from Portola's trip up the coast, he treks through suburbs, streambeds and chaparral. Alternately channeling Thoreau, Bill Bryson and Edward Abbey, he provides an excellent historical perspective on his native state. At times, it was almost as if I were traveling with Charlie and Steinbeck again, especially when he camped on the beach with Native American runners or rumbled across Camp Pendleton with a retired Marine docent. Highly recommended.
February 4, 2020
This is an educational and enjoyable travelogue of Mr. Neely’s hike from San Diego to San Francisco where he endeavored to track the path of Portola and Crespi, the Spanish men who famously led (and documented) a party throughout California in the 1700’s. The travel narrative includes his current day issues (e.g. how to get through the air force and marine bases) with bits of history from Crespi’s diaries describing the differences they encountered. He highlights the nature – both flora and fauna along with the lack of nature (too many highways!). I was surprised by the nature he did find in and around LA and I loved following him as he walked through many of the areas and even neighborhoods well known to a 30+ year Californian.
February 17, 2020
The parts of this book focused on the history of the Portola Expedition were interesting. While the author's hiking stunt was novel, his banal treatment of it made this hard to get through.
September 23, 2020
The idea of the walk was intriguing but I found the writing to be boring and over use of adjectives
July 23, 2023
I listened to the unabridged 19-hour audio version of this title (read by Tristan Wright, Dreamscape Media, 2019).
This is a combo book for hikers, naturalists, and history buffs. Neely sets out from San Diego and walks 650 miles northward over 12 weeks, carrying only a backpack & a tent and crossing the counties of San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo. He describes the 9 counties in 9 chapters of varying lengths. Santa Barbara and Monterey get the lion's share at ~60 pages or ~160 minutes each.
Neely traces the route of the first overland Spanish expedition, led by Gaspar de Portola in 1769. He describes the landscape, plants, and wildlife he encounters. History enters the picture when he passes interesting spots, such as where the Chumash Indians thrived, oil-drilling operations near the Carpinteria coast, or the Old Santa Barbara Mission. California's challenges in the domain of water, agriculture, oil & gas, immigration, and development come up from time to time.
In listening to the audiobook, I was naturally more interested in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, that is, where I live and the counties to its south and north, but I did learn a great deal about the other six counties covered. Neely's narrative becomes drawn-out at times, but he does manage to keep the reader's interest overall.
For me, learning the origins of city, neighborhood, ranch, and road names was a major treat. For example, the name of Goleta, my hometown, means "schooner." Among multiple possible explanations for this choice is that the first-ever American ship was built in the slough in 1828. As I read about historical developments along the route, I couldn't help but wonder how much nicer our state would be today, had efforts to preserve wetlands and delineate nature preserves started a century earlier than they did. Neely's story also motivated me to try to walk along parts of the route he describes, perhaps limiting myself to what can be done in a single day, preferably without trespassing in this age of widespread gun ownership!
Alta California quickly became a national best-seller in the US. Interestingly, exploration of California by sea (1840, Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast), on horseback (1913, J. Smeaton Chase, California Coast Trails), and on foot (2012, Cheryl Strayed, Wild) have also resulted in best-selling books.
This is a combo book for hikers, naturalists, and history buffs. Neely sets out from San Diego and walks 650 miles northward over 12 weeks, carrying only a backpack & a tent and crossing the counties of San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo. He describes the 9 counties in 9 chapters of varying lengths. Santa Barbara and Monterey get the lion's share at ~60 pages or ~160 minutes each.
Neely traces the route of the first overland Spanish expedition, led by Gaspar de Portola in 1769. He describes the landscape, plants, and wildlife he encounters. History enters the picture when he passes interesting spots, such as where the Chumash Indians thrived, oil-drilling operations near the Carpinteria coast, or the Old Santa Barbara Mission. California's challenges in the domain of water, agriculture, oil & gas, immigration, and development come up from time to time.
In listening to the audiobook, I was naturally more interested in Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, that is, where I live and the counties to its south and north, but I did learn a great deal about the other six counties covered. Neely's narrative becomes drawn-out at times, but he does manage to keep the reader's interest overall.
For me, learning the origins of city, neighborhood, ranch, and road names was a major treat. For example, the name of Goleta, my hometown, means "schooner." Among multiple possible explanations for this choice is that the first-ever American ship was built in the slough in 1828. As I read about historical developments along the route, I couldn't help but wonder how much nicer our state would be today, had efforts to preserve wetlands and delineate nature preserves started a century earlier than they did. Neely's story also motivated me to try to walk along parts of the route he describes, perhaps limiting myself to what can be done in a single day, preferably without trespassing in this age of widespread gun ownership!
Alta California quickly became a national best-seller in the US. Interestingly, exploration of California by sea (1840, Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast), on horseback (1913, J. Smeaton Chase, California Coast Trails), and on foot (2012, Cheryl Strayed, Wild) have also resulted in best-selling books.
May 2, 2024
As a SoCal, mainly San Diego, resident for over a quarter century, I greatly appreciated Neely's deep insights into the natural and human history of my home state. He hiked the route of 1769 expedition led by Gaspar de Portolá and Junípero Serra. Relying largely on the journal of Juan Crespí, he meticulously retraced their 650-mile, twelve-week northward journey. It was a massive challenge, given a variety of factors, including weather, terrain and property restrictions, but his distance running experience served him well and he emerged triumphant. Neely's excellent writing is supplemented by his extensive knowledge as a naturalist. Inspired by reading this book, I look forward to visiting places along Portolá's route, including adobes at Camp Pendleton.
"Under humming, stick figure electrical towers, the road climbed the ridge. The Portolá expedition must have remained low in the canyon, but I couldn't walk there. Soon I was trudging up and down a massive firebreak of soft, tilled soil, the width of three lanes, an invisible fence dividing Camp Pendleton from San Clemente suburbia. Mountain lion prints in the dust, I was pretty sure, wider and more oval than a dog, clawless. The hills the color of a cougar. How can I describe the shades of brown that are Southern California and its straw-filled terrain? Dirty blonde and rosy brown, invasive khaki, coffee with milk, the rusty umber of California buckwheat, potato skin to the horizon. But studded with green. With oak, manzanita, and toyon, wherever there is leakage or a little luck, a dearth of fire." p54
"Under humming, stick figure electrical towers, the road climbed the ridge. The Portolá expedition must have remained low in the canyon, but I couldn't walk there. Soon I was trudging up and down a massive firebreak of soft, tilled soil, the width of three lanes, an invisible fence dividing Camp Pendleton from San Clemente suburbia. Mountain lion prints in the dust, I was pretty sure, wider and more oval than a dog, clawless. The hills the color of a cougar. How can I describe the shades of brown that are Southern California and its straw-filled terrain? Dirty blonde and rosy brown, invasive khaki, coffee with milk, the rusty umber of California buckwheat, potato skin to the horizon. But studded with green. With oak, manzanita, and toyon, wherever there is leakage or a little luck, a dearth of fire." p54
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