When It Comes to Hiking, These Nature Lovers Are in the Dark

It was miles from the Hollywood Bowl, but the nocturnal musicians put on a show anyway. Crickets chirped. Insects buzzed. Nighthawks screeched. The great horned owl hooted.

Their audience: About 80 people who on Saturday night exchanged high heels for hiking boots and ties for T-shirts, then made their way through the chaparral-covered hillsides of Eaton Canyon for a moonlight walk.

Each month when the full moon rises, guide Larry Shaffer leads a flock of people down dirt trails and rocky paths, deep into the canyon in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

“You can always hike during the day,” said John Werthwein, who came from Sierra Madre with his girlfriend and her two sons. “But hiking at night is romantic.”

Werthwein, along with many others, was a repeat participant in the hike, sponsored by the Eaton Canyon Nature Center, part of the Los Angeles County park system. Hikers, who pay $2 to participate, meet at the Nature Center on Altadena Drive in Pasadena. Some people come just for the monthly moonlight walks, while others also join Shaffer for his twice-monthly twilight hikes.

“I would come every night if I could,” said Patricia Claridge of Temple City. “I love to walk, and I love nature.”

Before setting out on the hike, Shaffer, a 41-year-old Pasadena native who grew up using Eaton Canyon as his back-yard playground, laid out the only rule: “Don’t walk ahead of me,” he said. “There are reptiles out there, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

As he prepared to divide the hikers into two groups of 40 each, a blue heron flew overhead to oohs and aahs. “That’s a good omen,” said Shaffer, who by day is a science teacher at High Point Academy in Pasadena. “Maybe we’ll see a lot tonight.”

They did. As dusk set in, a flutter of “little brown bats,” no bigger than small birds, broke from the treetops. “They look cute from far away,” said Jennifer Nielsen of Pasadena who was there with her fiance. “But I wouldn’t want to see them up close.”

By walk’s end, they also had come across a luminescent glow worm, a Pacific tree frog, beetles, a couple of owls--with their wide wingspans and haunting cries--and even a deer.

While it was still light out, Shaffer, who has been leading these walks for 12 years, pointed out poison oak and told stories about how the Gabrielino Indians used to eat one leaf a day to build up a resistance to the rash-inducing plant. A little farther down the trail, he pointed out the mugwort, the leafy green antidote the Indians used to cure poison oak. “The Indians used this as an insect repellent,” he said, “although I don’t think it works any better than Cutter’s.”

About an hour after the 7:30 p.m. hike began, darkness fell.

Shaffer told the group that as it gets darker, they should rely more on their senses of hearing and smell. “We’re getting into the transition from day to night,” Shaffer said. “It’s my favorite time. I love hiking at night--you can’t get moon burn.”

And even if you could, the moon on this night hid behind a cover of clouds. Members of the group turned on flashlights to help them navigate through a dry riverbed, bounded by oak woods and coastal sagebrush. “It’s more like a flashlight hike than a moonlight hike,” said Patrick Ferris, 11, who had joined his mother, brother and Werthwein for the evening outing.

The hikers--a mix of families (one clan had four generations represented), friends, lovers and singles--said the moonlight hike intrigued them as an alternative to the usual Saturday night of movies, restaurants, bars and clubs.

Shaffer said the night hikes draw a lot of singles. “It’s a nice way to meet people that’s not a bar,” he said. “I don’t think they come to find romance, but we have had some who have met here and ended up walking down the aisle.”

For others, the hike is just a walk on the wild side. “This was what was here before all the glamour,” said Sandy Lynn, a South Pasadena native. “This is the real L.A.”