SINGLES: SIERRA CLUB : Crossing Paths : A Sunday hiking group introduces people to the wonders of nature and to each other.

With a last dab of sunscreen and a swallow of water, they headed out. The path was wide enough to allow walking in twos or threes, and conversation blended with the sounds of the great outdoors.

It was the Sierra Singles Sunday afternoon hike. This particular one wound nearly eight miles through Hobo Jungle and Emma Wood State Beach at the west end of Ventura County--an excellent choice for a warm June day.

“This is my favorite hike, especially when the tide is low and we can come back on the beach,” said Jan Lewison of Ventura, the hike leader. She’s been hiking every week for about 15 years and now leads outings once a month.

“I like the outdoors and that was the main thing when I joined the Sierra Club,” she said. “Now I’m interested in the environment too. I understand how precious it is and how we need to protect it.”

Maria Papalexis, also of Ventura, demonstrated her environmental concern by picking up cans and litter as she walked along. She also enjoys these hikes for the people she’s met during her 12 years with the group.

For Carole Virden of Oxnard, this was her first Sierra Singles outing, although she’d hiked locally once before with the Conejo group in the eastern part of the county. “I like roughing it,” she said. “I get tired of the city and like to get into the country away from the traffic and congestion.”

Virden was pleased to spot a squirrel close by the path. The group also glimpsed a family of coots swimming on the Ventura River and stopped, too, to observe native flora--ice plant, wild roses, poison oak and hemlock.

Pausing under the shade of spreading Monterey cypress trees, Lewison explained to the 13 hikers how Hobo Jungle got its name. “During the ‘30s and ‘40s, the train used to stop in Ventura. So it was easy for the hobos to jump off there and come back in here.

“There were plenty more trees then; you can see all the remnants of them. It was a wonderful place to stay. Then they’d just go back a few blocks and catch the train again,” she said.

Later, on the beach, the group listened to Steve Noll of Ventura share a bit more county history. “These are gun turrets from World War II. The Japanese did attack the mainland U.S. in World War II, just north of here in an oil field.

“A submarine made it here and shelled the coast. It didn’t do any damage but you can bet it really scared some people and they put these two gun turrets here and two more elsewhere,” he said, noting how the cannon could rotate 360 degrees on a track and fire a 95-pound projectile 14 miles, either toward the sea or inland. Now only the turrets remain.

Not only the history of the area, but the geography, too, attracts some hikers. Les Kopel of Simi Valley was a geography major in college and enjoys tramping through various terrains. He also comes to meet people.

“I’ve dated quite a few women I met through the Sierra Club,” he said. “I spent a couple of years with one lady.” He likes the singles club because everyone starts out with a common interest in the outdoors and that makes it easy to “kibitz and jabber.”

That’s exactly what John Olson of Camarillo had in mind when he initiated Sierra Singles 15 years ago. He’d been hiking in Santa Barbara with a similar group but hated driving there. So he started a local club affiliated with the Sespe group of the Sierra Club.

Activities are “our reason for being,” Olson said of Sierra Singles. He noted that an outing usually attracts between 15 and 20 hikers from their mid-20s up to their 70s; most are single, but not all.

Dale Condra and Carolyn Briggs of Ventura met on a Sierra Singles hike in 1986, when Condra was a hike leader and Briggs had just moved to the county from Wisconsin.

“I didn’t know a soul,” she said. She chose to get involved with the Sierra Club because it “would get me outdoors and I’d get a little exercise; I’d get a chance to get acquainted with the geography of the area because I knew nothing of Ventura County and meet some people because I didn’t know anyone. It seemed to fit the bill on several strokes,” she said.

On her first hike, she met “a tall, blond, beautiful man,” whom she dated a short while. On her second, she met Dale, whom she married in 1988. They are expecting a baby this month.

Thinking back on that first hike, she said: “I was impressed with Sierra Singles. It wasn’t a meat-market scene. No guys coming on to you. People were friendly.” She also enjoys seeing people she’s met on hikes at concerts and other social events. “We have this connection,” she said.

Lately Briggs and Condra been doing less hiking. “I just don’t move around as much,” Briggs said, referring to her pregnancy. But they plan to get back into it soon. “The baby will go hiking. We have a sling and a backpack,” she said.

Will they continue Sierra Singles hikes? “Well,” said Condra, “the baby is single.”

* WHERE AND WHEN: The Los Padres chapter of the Sierra Club has two groups within Ventura County: the Conejo (for information, 498-0958) and the Sespe (484-7721). Sierra Singles (482-0958) is an offshoot of the Sespe group. For an annual subscription to the monthly bulletin announcing hikes sponsored by all three of these groups plus information on Ventura County outings of the Angeles chapter from the Los Angeles area, send $10 to the Sespe, 2207 Derby St., Camarillo 93010-3307. Membership in the Sierra Club is not a prerequisite for participating in activities.