if you're really interested in this topic, there are several books about the Russians in California. There's one there's been on my tbr for a long time that I haven't gotten to yet called California Through Russian Eyes that might answer your questions.

iirc they came via Alaska.

I live maybe an hour or so from Fort Ross. It's a pretty interesting place, although very small. It's hard to imagine how incredibly isolated these people must have been. There would have been small bands of native people, and they weren't too far (at least by today's standards) from small Mexican settlements, but pre-Gold Rush California was pretty sparsely populated and they were very far from home.