Spirits High Despite Low Turnout for Park Rally

Ask outdoor enthusiast Chris Hendricks and he’ll tell you that he wouldn’t mind sharing his favorite trails that crisscross the scenic Santa Monica Mountains, not in the least.

“The way I see it, the more people out here, the merrier,” said the mortgage broker from Agoura Hills. “The more popular this place becomes, the less chance we’ll see it eroded away by developers. When I go to the woods, I want to see backpackers, not bulldozers.”

Hendricks and his family were among several hundred bikers, hikers and horseback riders who took part Sunday in “Hands Across the Parkland,” an event billed as a celebration of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area’s 20th anniversary.

In what sounds like an Up With People throwback to the 1970s, organizers expected about 20,000 park users to gather Sunday morning, joining hands along a 30-mile stretch of Mulholland Highway between the San Fernando Valley and the Pacific Ocean in a show of support for what officials called the world’s largest urban national park.

But only a few hundred people materialized and the hoped-for human chain from the mountains to the sea turned out to be a scattered, broken thing as people gathered in pockets along closed-down Mulholland, many wondering where all the expected crowds were.

Planners, however, were unbowed.

“The chain may not have reached all the way to the ocean,” said event chairman Jeff Blum. “But we covered the distance in spirit.”

The folksy bit of handiwork was preceded by a “tree-lay,” in which a foot-tall coast live oak sapling was relayed--carried by such park users as walkers, runners, cyclists and even park rangers--from the Griffith Park Observatory to the intersection of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Mulholland Highway, where the human chain began about 10 a.m.

Afterward, park users were encouraged to visit several sites throughout the area for cultural demonstrations and guided walks along many park trails.

At Paramount Ranch, the largest cluster of 150 hand holders heard politicians talk about the need to continually add more park space, not destroy it through development.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky called the region’s parks a respite from the megalopolis that stretches from Santa Barbara south to the Mexican border.

“Look at the Thomas Bros. map and you’ll see that our parks, the areas shaded in dark green, are getting larger and larger,” he said. “And we plan to keep Thomas Bros. in business, forever amending their maps.”

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The portion of the human chain at Mulholland Highway and Stunt Road in Calabasas contained about 50 people, a collection of residents and docents from nearby Cold Creek Canyon Preserve. “I think it was important to be out and be a link in the chain,” said Mary Martin of Newbury Park.

Martin brought her two daughters--Marella, 9, and Meagan, 7--and her nephew, Alonzo Galloway of San Diego, to the event. Martin said her daughters hike the nearby trails and ones in Thousand Oaks almost once a week.

The Martins didn’t know anyone in the chain, but Mary Martin said it didn’t matter because they had a shared purpose. “A common bond of humanity came together to share in the beauty of nature,” she said.

Bobby Darroll, who walked from his nearby home, said it is important for people to experience the area’s parks. “You don’t realize the beauty of the parks until you do it,” he said.

Darroll, who owns a computer software business, said he moved to Calabasas about 1 1/2 years ago to get away from the more crowded Hollywood Hills.

“To be able to go into the mountains and parklands allows one to be spiritually rejuvenated,” Darroll said, adding that he hikes five days a week. “So, I think it’s critically important that we preserve these lands.”