inches annually, while some 90 inches fall near the crests and ridges. In winter the high peaks are dusted in snow, which may remain on the ground for weeks or even months above 3500 feet.
A rain shadow effect occurs along eastern slopes, similar to that seen along the eastern slopes of the Sierra. Moisture-laden air deposits its precipitation along the rising western slopes and ridges, leaving eastern slopes drier on average, as the air warms and descends into the Salinas Valley. King City averages only about 11 inches annually.
Spring
Spring is glorious along the Big Sur coast. Plants and animals awake from dormancy, and the sights and sounds of life abound. In the wake of winter rains, grasslands and forests burst forth with new growth. Colorful, fragrant wildflowers carpet the grasslands and ridges, while oak and riparian woodlands bud in vibrant green hues. Views are spectacular on cold, crisp days.
The arrival of spring varies with the timing of winter rains. If rains continue until May, expect incredible wildflower displays through summer, while an end to rains in March turns the hillsides gold as dry season descends on Big Sur. Expect encroaching fog by late spring as the North Pacific High returns offshore, spawning cold-water upwelling.
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
