Читать книгу Hiking and Backpacking Big Sur - Analise Elliot Heid - Страница 11

CHAPTER three

Big Sur Cultural History & Lore

IMAGINE A LAND OF STUNNING BEAUTY with a wealth of resources, where thousands of steelhead swim upstream along crystal clear creeks and rivers. Grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions roam sheer mountains that jut toward the heavens. Sea otters, seals, and whales forage in nearshore waters. Condors, falcons, and eagles soar overhead. Acorns, wild berries, nutritious herbs, and medicinal plants flourish amid valleys and hillsides. This vision is perhaps what early Europeans saw as they explored the vast wilderness inhabited by the American Indians of Big Sur.

American Indians

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE PROVES that people have lived along the rugged Big Sur coast for some 8000 years. When Spanish explorers of the 16th and 17th centuries arrived in Big Sur, the native population numbered nearly 5000 people among three separate coastal tribes: the Ohlone (from Point Sur north to San Francisco), the Esselen (from Point Sur south to Big Creek and inland to the upper Carmel River and Arroyo Seco watersheds), and the Salinian (from Big Creek south to San Carpoforo Creek and inland from Junipero Serra Peak north up the Salinas River valley). These groups differed dramatically from one another, adopting different languages, religious beliefs, customs, and dress.

The American Indians were hunter-gatherers, harvesting a variety of food sources throughout the year rather than farming. In fall they moved inland to bountiful oak woodlands to collect acorns, in spring to the valleys and grasslands to harvest nutritious herbs, and in winter to the Pacific to fish and hunt along the rich coastal waters.

Ancient middens speak to this variety in their diet. Lying amid former Indian villages and encampments, middens are essentially trash heaps, offering a stratified record of animal bones, shellfish remains, stone tools, weapons, and ornamental artifacts. Coastal middens largely contain the remains of mussels, abalone, chitons, barnacles, seabirds, marine mammals, and fish, while inland middens feature the bones of deer, skunks, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, rabbits, squirrels, mice, and gophers.

Aside from the middens and written records from Spanish explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists, we know little about these people and how they lived. Tragically, their culture vanished soon after contact with the Europeans. Within a few decades, thousands succumbed to European diseases for which they had no immunity. Many of those who survived such diseases as whooping cough and measles were driven from their lands, converted to Christianity, and put to work raising cattle within the mission system.

Spanish Exploration & the Mission Period

In 1542, Spain hired Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo to sail the California coast in search of riches and a water route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The first European to see Big Sur and the Santa Lucia Range, Cabrillo remarked, “There are mountains which seem to reach the heavens, and the sea beats on them; sailing along close to land, it appears as though they would fall on the ships.” He also encountered Monterey Bay, naming it Bahia de los Pinos (Bay of Pines).

In 1602, 60 years after Cabrillo’s expedition and nearly 20 years before pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcaíno sailed coastal California. His expedition spent two weeks surveying Monterey and Carmel Bays, proclaiming both to be excellent safe harbors. Vizcaíno named the coast Monte-Rey after Spain’s new viceroy, the count of Monte-Rey. Vizcaíno’s glowing reports and fears that Russian explorers were encroaching south along the coast from Alaska prompted Spain to claim Monterey Bay as its own.

In 1542, Cabrillo described the California coastline aptly: “There are mountains which seem to reach the heavens and the sea beats on them.”

In 1769, Gaspar de Portolá led an inland expedition north from Baja California near present-day San Diego. When the expedition reached the daunting coastal cliffs near Ragged Point, it turned inland. Protected by its sheer topography, Big Sur was left unexplored. After Portolá reached the San Francisco Bay, the expedition returned south, bypassing entirely Monterey, Carmel, and environs. Although disheartened, Portolá persevered and planned another trip.

In 1770, Portolá departed on another land expedition accompanied by Father Junipero Serra, who sailed north with the intent to establish Catholic outposts in the unknown territory. Serra established Mission San Carlos at present-day Carmel River State Beach and two other missions east of the Santa Lucia Range in the San Antonio River Valley and at Soledad in the Salinas Valley. Again, Big Sur was left unexplored.

The missionaries’ arrival drastically altered native life in the Big Sur region. The newcomers claimed the land and brought Ohlone, Esselen, and Salinian natives into the missions. Some welcomed the priests, while others were lured by exotic gifts of glass beads, colored fabric, metal tools, and livestock. Forced conversion and de facto enslavement was not mission policy prior to 1800, but when natives resisted, more coercive methods were used. Missionaries justified their enslavement of “heathens” as acceptable if the natives ultimately converted to Christianity and found salvation.

In 1821, Mexico declared independence from Spanish rule, and in 1834 the vast mission lands were secularized and divided into livestock “ranchos.” Any law-abiding Mexican Catholic was now eligible to receive land grants. California’s ranching era had begun.

VISITING THE SAN CARLOS BORROMEO DE CARMELO MISSION

Step back in time and enter Father Junipero Serra’s chosen home and final resting place, founded near the mouth of the Carmel River on August 24, 1771. Serra wished to build a permanent stone house of worship that required skilled masons to cut and dress the stones in the style of missions that Serra had erected in Mexico. With no skilled masons available in California, many of the missions never progressed past the humble adobe style, and the Carmel Mission we see today was delayed until years after Serra’s death.

The construction of the stone church began in 1795 and was basically complete by 1797, when it was dedicated for worship on Christmas Day of that year. When the church was originally constructed, the sandstone walls were quarried from the Santa Lucia Mountains, but most of the exterior is different today. Inside, the statue of the Virgin Mary in the side chapel of Our Lady Bethlehem is the same one that Father Serra carried back from Mexico in 1769.

Carmel Mission served both as headquarters for the mission’s agricultural holdings in the Carmel Valley and as command center for the statewide California mission system. Today, the mission serves as a parish church, school, and basilica. Its distinction as a basilica is the highest honorary rank for a church and implies great historical and artistic importance. Pope John XXIII honored Carmel Mission’s church with the rank of basilica in 1961 in recognition of Serra’s work in the establishment of Christianity on the western coast of the United States, as well as the unique architectural features of the structure such as the Moorish dome and the parabolic ceiling. Since that designation, Carmel Mission Basilica was honored with a visit by Pope John Paul II, who visited the church to lay a wreath at the foot of the grave of Father Serra, who is buried beneath the floor of the sanctuary (near the altar).

Carmel Mission is open to the public Monday–Saturday 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday 10:30 a.m.–5 p.m. The admission fee to visit the mission grounds, basilica, and museums is $6.50 for adults, $4 for seniors (age 65 and up), and $2 for children age 7 and up (children under 6 are admitted free). These funds are used to support the continued maintenance and restoration of Carmel Mission. To get there, turn west from Highway 1 onto Rio Road and drive 0.7 mile to the corner of Lausen Drive. For more information, call (831) 624-1271 or visit carmelmission.org.

Ranching & Homesteading

AS MEXICO REDISTRIBUTED the vast mission holdings as land grants, homesteaders claimed several outlying areas of Big Sur. Monterey soon developed into an important Pacific trading port, and the United States began to set its sights on California. Tensions arose between land-owning Californios, as they called themselves, and American pioneers immigrating through the treacherous passes of the Sierra Nevada. Conflict erupted at the outset of the Mexican War in 1846. In 1848, Mexico ceded California to the United States. The following year, gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra, and statehood was declared in 1850.

Pioneers and prospectors headed to California in droves. By this time, many outlying areas, including the Carmel, Nacimiento, and San Antonio River Valleys, were already privately owned. Two land grants spanned Big Sur: the 8984-acre Rancho El Sur, owned by Juan Bautista Alvarado, covering most of Point Sur, and the 8876-acre Rancho San Jose y Sur Chiquito, from the Carmel River to Palo Colorado Canyon.

Would-be homesteaders found the remaining steep, rocky terrain ill suited for farming, difficult to cross, and isolated from the world. Nonetheless, by the late 1800s a small community of determined pioneers had settled in Big Sur. These strong-willed folks survived by hunting, fishing, foraging, raising livestock, planting orchards, and tending gardens amid the lush canyons and steep ridges. Today, much of the land is named for these early pioneer families, including the Pfeiffers, Posts, Plasketts, Prewitts, and Partingtons.

The sheer coastal topography has kept the Big Sur coastline rugged and largely uninhabited even to the present day.

Highway 1 Construction & Recent Settlement

UNTIL 1938, early settlers could only dream of a safe, fast route down the coast from Monterey to Big Sur. Even a simple supply trip to Monterey required a three-day trek up steep ridges and across creeks and deep canyons. In 1919, after lobbying pressure from a local politician, the federal government began construction of a road along the central California coast. The construction project pitted settlers who wanted to preserve their privacy against those who sought to profit from California’s growing tourist trade.

Built by convicts and local labor, Highway 1 would become one of America’s most popular roadways, revealing a gorgeous natural landscape. Artists and writers, social activists, scientists, philosophers, and other visionaries flocked to the area for inspiration, forming small artists’ colonies and Bohemian sanctuaries. In the 1940s and ’50s, playwright Henry Miller lived and worked in Big Sur. Other famous people who spent time here include Robert Louis Stevenson, Ansel Adams, Jack Kerouac, Mary Austin, Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, Lillian Ross, and Edward Weston.

Today, millions of annual visitors drive the Big Sur coast in appreciation of its unparalleled natural beauty. While the road literally paved the way for so many of us to access this wild, remote coast, it has also spurred government agencies, conservation groups, and local activists to preserve its exquisite beauty.

Big Sur Lore

WITHIN THE JAGGED cliffs and narrow valleys live generations of mysteries: tales of buried treasures, haunted beings, and supernatural speculation. The awe-inducing beauty and eerie isolation experienced by many who venture to Big Sur, whether to call it home or a place of refuge, gave birth to many interesting and irksome stories. In my countless days in the backcountry, I have yet to experience any evidence that these tales shed light on life within the Santa Lucia Mountains, yet they still remain an alluring part of Big Sur’s cultural heritage, and I do not intend to endorse or debunk them.

The Dark Watchers

The sighting of the Dark Watchers originates from the Chumash Indians. They first spoke of these dark humanlike beings inhabiting the forests and high country of Big Sur in legends and their cave paintings. More recently, legendary author John Steinbeck described them in his story, “Flight”:

“Pepe looked up to the top of the next dry withered ridge. He saw a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock, and he glanced away quickly not to appear curious. When a moment later he looked up again, the figure was gone.”

In 1937, the poet Robinson Jeffers mentioned them in his poem “Such Counsels You Gave to Me” as “forms that look human … but certainly are not human.” If Jeffers or Steinbeck ever actually saw one of the Dark Watchers is unknown, but the local legend has been around since long before they wrote about it. Longtime Big Sur resident Rosalind Sharpe Wall claims to have seen the Dark Watchers near Bixby Bridge. If you happen to come across a Dark Watcher, the prevailing wisdom warns against looking at them.

The Ventana

The Ventana Wilderness is named for a unique notch called “The Window” on a granite ridge between Ventana Double Cone and Peak. According to local legend, this notch was once a natural stone arch that created a natural “window,” which is supposedly what inspired the Spanish explorers gazing up toward the peaks to call it Ventana. The Ventana, or “The Slot” as local rock climbers call it, is the 200-foot-deep gap in the ridge. Geologists have yet to find rubble of a collapsed arch to support the legend, but nonetheless there are many arches and small complete “windows” in rock formations in the Santa Lucias. You can view the notch by looking west from Ventana Double Cone or along Coast Ridge Road with views north and looking northeast from Post Ranch Inn.

Supernatural Stories of Point Lobos

During the mission period, the Ohlone Indian neophytes at Carmel Mission would go out on foggy evenings to “cheer up” their lonely and forlorn fog spirits. The mission fathers strictly forbade any such pagan activity, and one night they followed them out into the fog and performed an exorcism. The fog spirits flew off angry and offended, departing with howls and causing sadness among the Indians. Some believe poetic justice prevailed, when the priest who performed the exorcism went mad, jumped off a cliff into the sea at Point Lobos, and was drowned.

A Goddess and a Hidden Gold Mine on Pico Blanco

With the discovery of gold and silver in Big Sur in the late 19th century, miners began searching for the precious metals along the flanks and valleys of the Santa Lucias. Today, the Pico Blanco area is littered with the rusting remnants of mining operations.

More than tales of fortunes found, historians have uncovered a curious tale that was circulated in response to the miners’ arrival. According to local legend, an American Indian goddess zealously protected Pico Blanco. Historians recorded these accounts by miners claiming to have encountered the goddess, who cursed them with madness for pursuing gold.

During this same gold exploration period in Big Sur, a seemingly illiterate prospector named Al Clark became Pico Blanco’s best-known resident. For decades he wandered the area around the mountain and told local ranchers stories of the goddess and a vast subterranean cavern filled with ancient pictographs that matched the descriptions of saber-toothed tigers and mastodons. In an effort to hide the cave, Clark said he used dynamite to destroy its entrance. Clark was an eccentric Columbia University graduate who posed as an illiterate. Rumors swarmed that he also found a hidden gold mine, but since he had no use for money, he left it alone and concealed the mine’s location. Clark’s hoard of gold still remains a mystery.