Trail Guide Trades O.C. Life for Magic of the Mountains : Running: Operating a small inn and running in Yosemite are driving forces behind free-spirited native of England.

The four-wheel drive vehicle rocked and lurched as it wound its way up the steep, rutted mountain road. Hundred-foot pines, rooted along the canyon floor below, soared toward the wispy clouds.

The mission was to find some of the most beautiful places to run in and around Yosemite National Park. But inside the car, a passenger glanced over the cliff’s oh -so-close edge, wondering how long it would take--seconds? minutes?--for the Bronco to hit bottom once it teeter-tottered over the side and into the dizzying depths below.

Suddenly, the car screeched to a stop.

“BLIMEY! “

Barry Hawley, driver, running guide and owner of the nearby Yosemite Fish Camp Bed & Breakfast Inn, suddenly began waving and pointing wildly at a lone, twisted pine growing out among several huge boulders on a distant hillside.

Although the sight was intriguing at best, Hawley, a highly animated, slightly eccentric 48-year-old native of England, found it awe-inspiring.

“Would you look at that! “ Hawley shouted. “That tree is growing right out of the bloody rock! Oh blimey! How does it do that? It’s magic! Bloody magic!”

Suddenly, Hawley’s attention shot to the car radio. Recognizing an opening riff, Hawley squealed, cranked the volume and punched his fist into the air.

“Aaaay! I love this song!” Hawley said, abandoning the steering wheel for a rollicking jam on his air guitar.

Moments later, a sensational mountain panorama came into view. For a rare moment, Hawley was silent.

“Ahhh . . .” he said softly. “This, this is magic.”

For Hawley, a former San Clemente resident and race director for Orange County’s San Juan Trail 50-miler, “magic” is what he found 14 months ago when he came upon Fish Camp, a tiny mountain community on the southern edge of Yosemite National Park.

Because of its location--approximately two miles from Yosemite’s South Entrance Station--Fish Camp lies in the middle of distance runners’ paradise.

Yosemite itself has more than 800 miles of trails, most of which twist and roll through deep pockets of forest and along pristine meadows. But the adjacent Sierra National Forest, in which Fish Camp is located, also offers plenty in the way of runners’ nirvana.

“Now this, “ Hawley says as he leads a visitor up and along a beautiful pine-lined trail, “This is why I left Orange County.”

Actually, Hawley, a self-employed engineer, had been looking for a different line of work for the last few years. His specialty--defense industry engineering--was on the decline, so on a whim, he attended a bed and breakfast seminar at Saddleback College. He was encouraged by what he learned.

At the same time, Hawley, who often competes in races as long as 100 miles or more, was becoming increasingly dismayed at the congestion and development around his San Clemente home--and all of Southern California.

“The traffic, the millions of people were driving me . . . mad,” Hawley said.

Last April, Hawley was running in a 50-mile race in Sacramento with a friend who recently had moved to Coarsegold, a tiny town between Fresno and Yosemite. He told Hawley of a bed and breakfast for sale in Fish Camp.

“I said, ‘Uh . . . where? ‘ I mean, it could have been Tibet,” Hawley said.

But he drove up, fell in love with the place and, for $250,000, bought it last June as a ready-for-business bed and breakfast establishment.

“The second day I was making breakfast when I was approached by one of my guests, a very small, old New Zealand woman,” Hawley said.

“She said, ‘What are you trying to do there?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m scrambling eggs, Madam.’ She said, ‘No, you’re not.’ With such an abrupt statement, I thought well, maybe she’s right. From that moment on, I did it her way.”

Few guests have to tell Hawley how to run his business anymore. Although his B&B; is not a mansion--the rugged decor includes such items as a knee bone from a cow that rests on the fireplace hearth--he does keep the three-bedroom guest house neat and clean, and serves a generous breakfast of fresh fruit, eggs and apple-walnut pancakes.

But it’s his wacky, hyper-paced personality mixed with his occasional crude English humor--sort of Roger Rabbitt-meets-Monty Python--that keeps his guests grinning.

“Good morning guests!” Hawley shouted from the kitchen as he prepared breakfast last Monday morning.

“OK!” he barked as he passed out bowls of fresh fruit. “What are you waiting for? Start eating! “

Instantly, Hawley broke into an almost frightening loud laughter, a wildly cackling burst much like Dudley Moore did as a drunken Englishman in the movie “Arthur.” Like many Englishmen named Barry, Hawley prefers to be called “Baz.” Although some pronounce it boz , the correct way is baz .

“You sort of have to be on Barry’s wavelength to appreciate him,” said Sandy Waddell, a longtime friend and running partner. “If that works out for you, there’s a lot of chemistry. If you’re not on his wavelength, well . . . You sort of love him or hate him sort of thing.”

Unfortunately, not all Fish Camp residents (population 30, according to the road sign) seem to love Hawley. Although he describes himself as the “Mayor of Fish Camp”--admitting that the title is a self-appointed one--and often drives through town waving and shouting cheerfully to passersby, he hasn’t quite made it on everyone’s popularity chart.

Bruce Stanford, manager of the Yosemite Mountain Ranch, a private ranch of 4,000 acres, said he caught Hawley trespassing on the ranch, and warned him to stay off. Hawley, he said, continued to trespass.

“We had a go around about it,” Stanford said. “He seems to think he can run anywhere he likes. He’s done it three or four times, but I finally caught him. I told him to stay off the property, I told him it’s private property. But he got pretty indignant about it. He didn’t even have the courtesy to ask first.”

But most residents seem to enjoy his off-beat personality.

“He’s a really nice guy,” said Wendy Davies, a checker at Fish Camp General Store. “I think he’s crazy sometimes, though. He just jogs around everywhere in Fish Camp.”

And runs everywhere else.

Hawley, who in June organized and directed Fish Camp’s first running race, the Shadow of the Giants 50K, has explored hundreds of miles of trails in the vicinity. Because of this, his worth as a trail guide is invaluable for his running guests, of which there are many.

“What I found was that people like a guide when they run,” said Hawley, who advertises in long-distance running magazines to further attract a running clientele.

“So many of the runners that come up say, ‘OK, where are we going to run today?’ We can go run for four or five hours, and I can take them up in the hills and places they wouldn’t find on their own.”

And perhaps only then, would they come to understand the meaning of the word magic. Barry Hawley style, that is.