Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, A Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State by Nick Neely (review)

Nick Neely proved himself one talented naturalist with his debut collection Coastal Range (2016). His new book is nothing if not ambitious, the title scrolling us back into pre-nineteenth-century California history we either don't know or would prefer to ignore. Alta proves a nature ramble on an enormous scale as well as a version of historical pilgrimage. Neely has closely studied the 1769 Gaspar de Portola Expedition, which became the basis for El Camino Real, the chain of iconic California missions, and the accelerated quasi genocide of many of the tribal peoples of the region.

Neely decided to retrace the expedition's route 247 years later, beginning in downtown San Diego and culminating in his hometown near the southwest edge of San Francisco Bay. He follows its timeline, beginning in mid-July and ending 650 miles later in early November. Alta represents a considerable act of historical imagination as Neely trudges through 2016's summer and autumn, pursuing many intriguing angles.

A gifted naturalist, Neely never sees or hears a bird he doesn't know and seems equally at home with plants and trees, whether native species or well-known exotics such as eucalyptus. Through his daily walks north/northwest, he investigates and incorporates fascinating local history. The focus upon this Spanish "Corps of Discovery" also includes well-handled stories of nineteenth-century rancheros and agricultural history, as he folds considerable research and vignette into the account of his trek.

Along his dusty way, we're treated to quotidian detail as well as healthy doses of self-mockery. Neely "eats out" early in his trip, parking his backpack against the walls of the fast-food nation. He thanks himself for buying a one-man inconspicuous gray tent, which helps avoid detection. Sometimes he doesn't pitch it: too visible, too hot. Neely uses a practiced eye as he steers toward stands of foliage, sleeps near the homeless and coyotes, but is, surprisingly, never hassled. And his sense of trespassing relaxes as he traverses the central California coast.

Unsurprisingly, Neely's path opens him to casual encounters, and Alta features quick character sketches and bits of conversation with myriad folks, most of them friendly even if incredulous about his undertaking. He occasionally joins tourists and steps out of his lone trek, at the Getty Museum, for example, and San Simeon.

His detour around and through Camp Pendleton anticipates more harrowing moments, including his illegal, nocturnal transit across railroad property near Point Conception. Imagine walking across greater LA, the ultimate highway city. Faithful to the 1769 route, Neely sometimes veers away from the coast, traversing steep coastal mountains and drainages, the ocean's crash pounding his ears. In Big Sur country and then in the Salinas River valley, he nods, as expected, at Robinson Jeffers and John Steinbeck.

How do Neely's historical strands, or the felt textures of his walk distant from interstates and US routes, help us understand what California has become? If this place poses an extreme example of American historical amnesia, how does Neely's comparative lesson instruct us about what should be remembered? The invaluable histories of Kevin Starr teach us California's recent past and its impacts on California now and tomorrow.

Neely gives some attention along his way, as he must, to the fates of local tribes hard upon the establishment of El Camino and the string of missions: sites of slave labor, disease, and death. We learn tribal names and occasional words, just as we learn about the Mexican class system upended by the John C. Frémonts and gold-hungry Anglos.

I wish this California native had used his journey to speculate more overtly about what his huge state has become in light of his research and sweat. I wish there were more explicit application of his historical walk to contemporary...