Volunteers Rebuild Trail Damaged by Fire, Storms : Nature: Crews clear rocks and fill in ruts on the once-popular Wheeler Gorge path in Los Padres National Forest.

First came a giant forest fire in 1985, which took a lot of the nature out of the Wheeler Gorge Nature Trail. Then last February’s killer storms blocked parts of the trail with broken limbs and landslides.

This weekend, more than 30 volunteers are helping rebuild the trail near the entrance of the Los Padres National Forest. Wielding picks, axes, shovels and saws, the workers on Saturday helped rangers restore the half-mile path, once one of the most popular in the forest north of Ojai.

“Holy smoke, look at all this,” said Jim Mann of Santa Barbara, shaking his head as he surveyed a patch of ceanothus--a tall, spindly bush--that had grown across the trail. “This is bad.”

Working in four crews, the volunteers hacked away at overgrown plants, removed rocks and filled in ruts and gullies. At some points they built new stretches of trail to replace segments that had been washed away or overtaken by brush.

“The old trail over there is covered with poison oak,” said Bill Roff of Ventura, motioning toward a sinister-looking thicket about 10 yards away. Using shovels, hoes and gloved hands, Roff and three other workers scooped out rocks to line a new 50-foot stretch of trail that they had carved through muddy clay.

Like Mann and Roff, many volunteers came from the Los Padres Interpretive Assn., a group of amateur naturalists whose 265 members live primarily in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

“This is my first activity of this type,” said Marguerite Gamo of Carpinteria, a group member for three years who was helping rebuild a washed-out section of trail. “It gives you a great sense of satisfaction--plus great people, fresh air.”

Her friend Nancy Trolson of Goleta encouraged her to take part, Gamo said. “She’s the one who assured me that this part of the trail had no poison oak,” Gamo said.

“Oops!” Trolson said as she hacked at a clump of the rash-causing plant, which had not yet sprouted the telltale leaves that might have helped Gamo avoid trouble.

“I’m real sensitive to it,” Gamo said. “I can get it from touching things that it touches.”

It’s too early for snakes, so poison oak and ticks were the only problems the workers were likely to encounter, Roff said.

And in exchange for their labor, the volunteers encountered more natural wonders than one might expect to find in a half-mile hike.

Starting near the Wheeler Springs campground six miles north of Ojai, the trail first hugs the north fork of Matilija Creek, still swollen after the long series of storms that ended last week. The roar of the water crashing into boulders echoed off the canyon cliffs on the other side of the creek.

The trail almost disappears as it crosses outcroppings of sedimentary rock. Then, as it rises over a ridge line, the trees thin out, the temperature rises, and the Los Padres high country comes into view. The din of the creek, once loud enough to drown out conversation, can no longer be heard.

The national forest’s Ojai District--which includes most of the northern half of Ventura County--has between 200 and 250 miles of trails, Ranger Charlie Robinson said. But Wheeler Gorge is the district’s only nature trail--a path equipped with signs pointing out botanical and geological sights along the way.

Some of the trail’s 16 metal signposts survived the 1985 Wheeler Springs fire--the fourth-largest in Southern California history, burning 119,000 acres. But many of plants and animal habitats they pointed to did not. Nearly eight years later, blackened stumps are still visible among the plants that have reclaimed the area.

With the restoration of the trail, expected to be completed today, the U.S. Forest Service and the interpretive association will refurbish the signposts and publish a new brochure to guide visitors along the trail.

Ranger John Boggs, who was supervising the work crews Saturday, said the trail suffered more damage from last year’s storms than from this year’s, even though rainfall from the just-concluded series of storms was heavier.

“This was a real problem area,” Boggs said, pointing to a landslide that washed out a trail segment last year. To restore the trail, eight workers piled up rocks to create a path over a four-foot-deep gully. In future storms, runoff should percolate between the rocks without disturbing the trail.

“I try not to boss them around too much,” Boggs said as he guided the workers through their small-scale engineering project.

Robinson said the Forest Service has grown to depend on such efforts.

“With our budget, we have to join forces more and more with volunteer groups,” Robinson said.

FYI

To get a trail map of Los Padres National Forest, send $2.15 to the district ranger station at 1190 E. Ojai Ave., Ojai 93023. Checks should be made payable to Los Padres Interpretive Assn. Topographical maps and other brochures are also available. For information, call the U.S. Forest Service at 646-4348. To join or learn more about the interpretive association--a volunteer group that conducts hikes and other activities in the forest--call board member Jim Mann at 967-1419.