“Rio Americano”; American River in Spanish. The parkway is our school’s backyard. But how often do we take advantage of everything it has to offer? Despite the beautiful nature being so close, many Sacramentans don’t realize the area’s full potential. Ashley Shult Langdon’s Mildly Scenic (designed by Greg Traverso) aims to streamline any visit to the river, whether for a 20-minute walk, or a day-long adventure.
Mildly Scenic is the first comprehensive guide to the trails and river access points along the Lower American River. The book features pictures, maps and illustrations of each area, as well as tips and information, such as parking access, trails for walking, running or biking, and much more.
Experience with Nature
Despite having a strong love for the American River, Langdon only moved to Sacramento in 2014. In her life, she has visited some of the most scenic places on the planet.
“I think my whole identity growing up [reinforced my feelings for the American River] because my parents were always travelers and I went to school in Malaysia,” Langdon said.
Langdon continued to travel for much of her early adult life.
“My whole identity until I had kids was ‘international traveler to far off places,’” Langdon said.
When she began bringing her kids to the river, Langdon’s perspective changed.
“Kids don’t care if they’re in Spain or if they’re here,” Langdon said. “They just want to dig in the dirt and throw rocks… And so at the end of the day, it just doesn’t make sense to take them far at this stage in my life.”
In her childhood, Langdon spent a lot of her time outdoors. Her family would spend summers at a cabin in the Oregon woods.
“My entertainment for the whole summer was just running around in the woods and hanging out at the lake,” Langdon said.
Although Langdon slowed down her travel in recent years, she continues to get out into nature as often as possible.
“My favorite thing is to be outside,” Langdon said. “I just think I’ve always been wired that way, but I do think that those summers were super formative for me.”
Writing the Book
In 2020, Langdon found herself with an issue many parents faced at the time: her two preschool children were stuck at home. Struggling to get her kids out into nature without driving too far, she turned to the river.
Trying to navigate the parkway, as a lifetime resident of Sacramento, or as a newcomer, can be difficult.
“I looked for a guidebook, and there wasn’t one,” Langdon said. “But I was too busy and stressed out to really think more of it, so we just started exploring.”
Over years of taking her kids to the river, and learning more and more about it, Langdon realized just how little most people knew about the parkway. As she talked to her friends about their trips to the river, Langdon discovered that most of them weren’t familiar with many of the trails and access points.
“I went into the East Village Bookshop and asked for a book like this,” Langdon said. “And the owner was like, no, there’s not really a book like that on the trails, but you could write one.”
Despite never considering herself an author, Langdon began work on her book. After spending most of 2022 writing, she started thinking more seriously about publishing it.
With a friend with experience in Adobe Illustrator, Langdon tried to lay out the book in a way she was satisfied with, but couldn’t quite get there.
“That’s when I [thought], ‘I need to bring in a professional,’” Langdon said. “That was a big deal for me because I, at that point, had not put any money into the project. It was just my time, which is a lot of my time, but I hadn’t paid anybody to help me.”
Langdon then met Greg Traverso, a graphic designer, for coffee at Temple. Despite extensive experience designing magazine articles, Traverso had never formatted an entire book.
“He and I were very much equals in the sense that neither of us had made a book,” Langdon said.
Langdon found another complication while working on Mildly Scenic: making the maps. Creating maps is much more complicated than drawing an aerial view of the river.
“You’ve got to layer on all these different data points basically to build this map,” she said.
Without any experience in map-making, Langdon and Traverso needed help. Langdon learned about the cartography department at Sacramento State University, and reached out to hire someone. They responded, telling her that she didn’t need to hire anyone, and that their upper division data acquisition class would take on Mildly Scenic as their final project.
“The fact that it was just a fun win-win thing where not only did I require maps for my book and didn’t know how to get it, but then the students were also looking for real-world experience in their geography coursework,” Langdon said. “It’s just really powerful to have the student energy there too.”
Langdon’s main concern was ensuring that the book wasn’t too technical.
“I want it to feel like anybody can pick it up,” Langdon said. “You don’t have to be an outdoorsy person.”
