Walks Bring Youngsters, Parents Close to Nature

It was a warm, late-summer morning in the hills south of Thousand Oaks, but the giant oaks cooled the winding dirt path below.

Sixteen kids, 14 moms, a dad and a docent started a noisy ascent up the gradual Los Robles Trail, the parents juggling strollers, bottles and babies, and the toddlers struggling for freedom.

“He wants to run in the poison oak,” Thousand Oaks resident Cindy Svezia said of her beefy 13-month-old son, Christian.

The poison oak alongside the leaf-strewn, stroller-wide trail was among the hazards docent Diane Anderson warned of as the two-hour hike began, the others being lizards and ticks.

“But don’t worry, moms,” she called to the group. “If you find a tick when you get home, there are a few different ways to get them off. Just call your pediatrician.”

They continued up the trail, with Anderson stopping every few hundred feet to point out a bird’s nest here, a deer print there, to tell a story or read aloud from a book.

Tuesday’s Nursery Nature Walk was one of several hikes for children planned each month in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. There are also series of hikes called Babes in the Woods, Tots on the Trail and Canyon Tykes, all aimed at parents with young children and all sponsored by different nonprofit agencies.

“It’s a cooperative effort,” said Jean Bray, spokeswoman for the recreation area. “The organizations enhance the National Park Service efforts to educate visitors and make them aware of all the different natural and cultural resources that exist.”

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Nursery Nature Walks, a Santa Monica-based organization founded in 1985, holds family walks in Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange counties. The walks, which cost $5 for those who can afford that donation, set out with as few as two adults and as many as 20. The number of children varies, but all must be accompanied by an adult.

The volunteer docents--each of whom has undergone a series of eight training sessions to learn about the flora and fauna--focus on the senses, encouraging children to feel the leaves, smell the sage, and keep an eye out for birds, bugs and butterflies.

“Our purpose is to teach children and families to respect nature and each other, and introduce them to the outdoor areas and wildlife,” said Judy Burns, executive director of Nursery Nature Walks. “The younger you get children out in nature, the gentler they are and the more they learn to respect the environment and each other.”

That theory proved true for Steven Harrison of Malibu Lake, an articulate outdoorsman of 8.

“I like being out here because I love the wild,” he said. “I love the life, the animals. I don’t like the bugs as much, but they still are living things.”

Steven said deer are his favorite animal. “I like the way they run,” he said.

Steven was along on the hike with his mother, Barbara, a volunteer in training to become a docent.

Along the trail, she and another volunteer helped Anderson with bits of education and entertainment.

As the group paused for snacks at a shaded picnic table just off the path, Harrison pulled out a stuffed opossum, with two babies Velcroed to its back.

“Possums have no enemies,” she told the children, some of whom listened and some of whom were still concentrating on the plastic bugs that had been laid out on the ground for them to “find.”

Katie Champion, 2, of Thousand Oaks sat on her dad’s lap as she stared at her plastic spider, then pointed out a nearby spider web with a loud, “Oooooo.”

Steve Champion said he enjoys the walks, for the outing and the education. “I learn as much on these walks as the kids do,” he said, offering Katie a bite of a crustless peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich.

Others weren’t as fond of the fauna.

“There’s too much bugs out here,” complained 4-year-old Kyle Cook of Fillmore, who came with his mother, Hollianne, and sister Jessie Lynn, 2. But Kyle perked up when the talk turned to lop-eared bunnies.

“My bunny has ears like this,” he said, using index fingers to point straight up.

Back on the trail, the long procession stopped again as Anderson picked a few light-green leaves of pungent sage, passing them down the line for the children to rub and smell.

About that time, 8-month-old Ryan Barbee of Ventura started to cry. Roberta Barbee, an environmental biologist by training and stay-at-home mom for now, plucked Ryan from her jog stroller and struggled to get him into a front pack. Two moms came to her assistance, helping her rearrange the straps.

By the end of the hike, Ryan was sacked out in friend Carolyn Russell’s stroller and Russell’s daughter, Isabella, 2, had joined Barbee’s 2-year-old, Patrick, in the jog stroller.

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All was well until a piece of tree bark was passed down the line for each child to touch and inspect.

“Mine!” cried Isabella, reaching for the bark.

And the stroller bounced ahead, one in the train along the dirt trail, under the trees on a warm morning in the hills.

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FYI

The new “Outdoors” calendar of events for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area will be available Sept. 25. To receive the free brochure, call (818) 597-9192 or write SMMNRA Outdoors calendar, 30401 Agoura Road, Suite 100, Agoura Hills 91301. To contact Nursery Nature Walks, call (310) 364-3591.