Description Alta California weaves nature and humanity, past and present, in surprising and serendipitous ways as author Nick Neely follows the first overland Spanish expedition 250 years later--on Foot 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.
The author of Coast Range , he lives in Hailey, Idaho, with his wife, the painter Sarah Bird..
He is a recipient of PEN/Northwest\'s Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, a UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship, and the 2015 John Burroughs Nature Essay Award.
About the Author NICK Neely holds an MA in literature and the environment From the University of Nevada, Reno, and MFAs in nonfiction and poetry From Hunter College and Columbia University.
The result is a collage of past and present, 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.
Weaving natural and human history, Alta California relives his adventure, tells the story of Native cultures and the Spanish missions that soon devastated them, and explores the evolution of California and its landscape.
For twelve weeks, following the journal of expedition missionary Father Juan Cresp , Neely kept pace with the ghosts of the Portol expedition--nearly 250 years later.
So he set off to learn it bodily, with just a backpack, trekking through stretches of California both lonely and urban.
Neely grew up in California but realized how little he knew about its history.
It laid the foundation for the Golden State we know today, a place that remains as mythical and captivating as any in the world.
Led by Gaspar de Portol in 1769, the expedition sketched a route that would become, in part, the famous El Camino Real.
Description Alta California weaves nature and humanity, past and present, in surprising and serendipitous ways as author Nick Neely follows the first overland Spanish expedition 250 years later--on Foot 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
