Publicized and idealized all over the world, CALIFORNIA
really does live up to the myth. More than just a terrestrial
paradise of sun, sand and surf, it has high mountain ranges, fast-paced
glitzy cities, primeval old-growth forests and vast stretches
of deserts. The landscape is imbued with history, ranging from
rock carvings left by indigenous Native Americans to the eerie
ghost towns of the Gold Rush pioneers.
In some ways, the west coast is the ultimate "now"
society. Anywhere so vulnerable to the constant threat of the
Big One - a massive earthquake of unimaginable
terror - is bound to have a sense of living for the moment. However,
its supposed superficiality is largely fictitious. Although home
to such reactionary figures as Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon,
it has also been the source of some of the country's most progressive
political movements . The fierce protests of the Sixties
may have died down, but California remains the heart of liberal
America, at the forefront of environmental awareness, gay pride
and social permissiveness, and increasingly a bulwark of the Democratic
Party. Economically , too, the region is crucial,
whether in the film industry, the music business, the financial
markets, or the all-consuming sector of real-estate development.
California is too large to be fully explored in
a single trip, but in an area so varied it's hard to pick out
specific highlights. Los Angeles is far and away
the biggest and most stimulating city: a maddening collection
of freeways, beaches, seedy suburbs, upscale neighborhoods and
extreme lifestyles. From Los Angeles you can head south to the
growing metropolis of San Diego , with its broad,
welcoming beaches and easy access to Mexico; or push inland to
the desert areas , most notably Death
Valley , a barren and inhospitable landscape of volcanic
craters and salt pans that in summer becomes the hottest place
on earth.
Most people, though, follow the shoreline north
up the central coast : a gorgeous run that takes
in lively small towns like Santa Barbara and
Santa Cruz . California's second city, San
Francisco , at the top end, is about as different from
LA as it's possible to get: the oldest, most European-styled city
in the state, set on a series of steep hills, its wooden houses
tumbling down to water on three sides. It is also well placed
for the national parks to the east, such as Yosemite
, where waterfalls cascade into a sheer glacial valley, and
Sequoia/Kings Canyon with its gigantic trees, as well
as the ghost towns of the Gold Country. North
of San Francisco the countryside becomes wilder, wetter and greener,
approaching Oregon through spectacular and almost deserted volcanic
tablelands.
The climate in southern
California consists of seemingly endless days of sunshine
and warm dry nights, with occasional bouts of torrential flooding
in the winter. LA's notorious smog is at its worst when the temperatures
are highest, from July through September. All along the coast
mornings can be hazily overcast, especially in May and
June; in exposed San Francisco it can be chilly all year, and
fog rolls in to ruin many a sunny day. Much more so than in the
south, winter in northern California can bring rain for weeks
on end, causing massive mudslides that wipe out roads and hillside
homes. Most hiking trails in the mountains are
blocked between October and June by the snow that keeps California's
ski slopes among the busiest in the nation.
