THOUSAND OAKS : Oak Creek Canyon Trail Designed for Disabled Hikers

Signs along a new trail in Thousand Oaks will invite hikers to smell the distinctive scent of black sage leaves, touch the soft bark of a decaying oak and listen to the raucous call of a scrub jay and the hum of insects.

The one sense these signs won’t say much about is sight.

The trail, under construction at Oak Creek Canyon, is designed for hikers who are visually impaired or in wheelchairs. It is one of a handful of such trails in Southern California.

“Touchy-feely is the goal,” said Mark Towne, assistant planner with the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency.

The one-quarter-mile trail is scheduled to open about Dec. 15. The trail head begins near the Arts Council Center at the end of Green Meadow Avenue.

A suspended cable will guide visually impaired hikers along the trail. Sixteen interpretive signs, in English and Braille, will alert them to such natural landmarks as wild cucumbers, chaparral and rabbit warrens, as well as to such natural dangers as poison oak.

To accommodate wheelchair hikers, the trail is 5 feet wide and is paved with a smooth, natural-looking surface. There are no steep grades.

Equestrians and mountain bikers can use an adjacent dirt trail that is separated from the wide trail by a split-rail fence.

The trail, along with a parking lot and handicap-accessible bathrooms, will cost $80,000, said Shauna Welty of the Conejo Recreation and Park District. The federal Land and Water Conservation Fund awarded a $37,500 grant, and the remainder of the cost is split between the city of Thousand Oaks and the district.

Planners said that what benefits the disabled also benefits other hikers. The trail’s surface accommodates children in strollers as easily as it does wheelchairs, and the signs provide a wealth of information for all hikers.

“When you’ve made it accessible through rich language for the visually impaired, you’ve made it a richer environment for anybody who wants to use it,” said Robert Perrone of the Braille Institute in Los Angeles. The institute is making the trail signs and brochures.

Perrone said the trail should change some attitudes toward handicapped hikers.

“Any sighted person who walks down here and sees what was done for the blind people is going to say, ‘Oh yeah, blind people go into the woods too.’ ”