The travelers now marched up the coast until, on the 13th, they came to a point where further progress was disputed by the Sierra de Santa Lucia.  This was where a spur from the sierra terminating in Mount Mars, blocks the passage by the beach and presents a bold front, rising three thousand feet from the water.  Camping at the foot of the sierra, Portola sent out the explorers under Rivera to find a passage through the mountains.  During the 14th and 15th, the pioneers labored to open a way into the sierra through San Carpoforo canon, and on the 16th the command moved up the steep and narrow gulch, with inaccessible mountains on either side.  It is impossible to follow their route through this rugged mountain range with any degree of accuracy.  Their progress was slow and painful.  On the 20th, they toiled up an exceedingly high ridge to the north, and from its summit the Spaniards looked upon a boundless sea of mountains, “presenting,” writes Crespi, “a sad prospect to us poor travelers worn out with the fatigue of the journey.”  The cold was beginning to be severe, and many of the men were suffering from scurvy and unfit for service, which increased the hardship for all; yet they did not falter but pressed bravely on, and on the 26th emerged from the mountains by the Arroyo Seco, which they named the Canada del Palo Caido[24] (Valley of the Fallen Tree), and camped on the Salinas river, which they christened Rio de San Elizario.  From now on the march is an easy one down the Salinas valley to the sea.

On the last day of September, the command halted near the mouth of the Salinas river, within sound of the ocean, though they could not see it.  They were persuaded that they were not far from the desired port of Monterey and that the mountain range they had crossed was unquestionably that of the Santa Lucia, described by Torquemada in his history of the voyage of Vizcaino, and shown on the chart of the pilot Cabrera Bueno.  The governor ordered the explorers to go out and ascertain on what part of the coast they were.  On the morrow, Rivera, with eight soldiers, explored the coast to the southward, marching along the shore of the very port they were seeking, while Portola, with Costanso, Crespi, and five soldiers, climbed a hill from whose top they saw a great ensenada, the northern point of which extended a long way into the sea, and bore northwest at a distance of eight maritime leagues, while on the south a hill ran out into the sea in the form of a point, and appeared to be wooded with pines.  They recognized the one on the north as the Punta de Ano Nuevo and that on the south as Punta de Pinos, while between the two lay the great ensenada[25], with its dreary sand dunes.  This was as laid down in the coast pilot (derretero) of Cabrera Bueno, but where was the famous port of Monterey?

They thought that perhaps they had passed Monterey in the great circuit they had made through the mountain ranges.  For three days the search was continued.  Rivera reported that south of the Point of Pines and between it and another point to the south (Point Carmelo) was a small ensenada, where a stream of water came down from the mountains and emptied into an estero; that beyond this the coast was so high and impenetrable they were obliged to turn back, and he believed that it was the same sierra which compelled them to leave the coast on the 16th of September.