The Dominguez-Escalante Expedtion was an effort to find an over-land route from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Monterey, California. Their journey took them north across the Colorado Plateau to Utah Lake Valley, which was a peculiar route at first, until you realize that they started with a route taken by Juan Rivera in 1765.

Atanasi Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante were born in Mexico City and Spain, respectively. They left Santa Fe along with about a dozen others (one of whom had been on the Juan Rivera trip) beginning on July 30.

Throughout their trip they were beset by spells of bad weather punctuated by areas of arid land, which meant little pasture for the horses to feed, and insufficient water. And while the Grand Canyon, which I mentioned during the episode, was certainly an obstacle, it wasn’t the only canyon they had to deal with that had difficult terrain for them to navigate. They crossed into the Utah territory on September 11 and reached Utah Lake on this date. Their stop at the Utah Lake Valley was a happy one, as the local natives treated them very well and gave them provisions, but shortly after leaving a few days later, the conditions became difficult again and they made the decision to return to Santa Fe on October 5.

It was still almost three full months before they arrived back in Santa Fe, on January 2, 1777. They hadn’t accomplished their original mission, but they’d mapped a lot of territory and laid the foundation for a future trail.

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Meanwhile, three thousand miles away from the action…

…the Spanish were exploring the West Coast and claiming a lot of territory in their name. It was largely exploration and planting flags, although there were some colonies established as well.

But what’s interesting about the bit of exploration we’ll be looking at today is that, even though the Spanish had been up and down the coast for a couple of hundred years, it wasn’t until 1769 that they realized that the strait leading into San Francisco Bay was even there. Possibly because it was frequently fogged in, possibly because the area was considered hazardous to navigate.

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We’ve spent all our time on the East Coast; let’s take a side quest to the West Coast to see what the Spanish are up to.

We have two main players here: Bruno de Heceta, after whom at least two locations on the West Coast are named (and they’re pronounced differently, go figure), and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra.

They sailed together, each in charge of a ship, and made it almost to Canada before Heceta headed back to Mexico and Bodega y Quadra continued on up to Alaska. Their goal was to find Russians, and in that respect they failed, but they did manage to claim a lot of territory for Spain.

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