Nature Center, Once Blackened, Is Again Wild With Life

Dave Felt led two families with small children along a winding trail, threading among oak and sycamore trees once ravaged by fire, at Pasadena’s Eaton Canyon Nature Center.

Felt, a docent, explained how the leaves of a mugwort plant could be crumpled and used as an antidote to poison oak. He described how coffee made from the black-fruited coffeeberry plant actually tasted really horrible. He pointed out the whipple yucca, telling how it contained long fibers that could be used to make cords.

He told the story of how prospectors tied mules to one particular plant that would make the animals bloat up and get fat after they ate it--thus earning the plant its name: mulefat (or Baccharis salicifolia). And he pointed out the scraggly remains of a dead tree, a victim of the 1993 blaze.

But 5-year-old Matthew Stoffers was unimpressed until the small group rounded a bend, heading toward home. As the adults stopped to gaze at a member of the sunflower family, the shrubby butterweed, Matthew gasped and pointed at something beyond the flowering bush.

Matthew, wearing a yellow baseball cap too big for his head, had been quiet throughout the 90-minute walk. He scarcely noticed when 3-year-old Kahle’a Lee Fleischman melted down and had to be carried off by her parents just before the group reached the rocks. He

remained unfazed when his own 3-year-old sister Claire began telling their parents that she wanted a snack.

But when he marched around the final bend in the trail, he could not contain his excitement.

“A Dumpster! A Dumpster!” he exclaimed, and begged his parents to pick him up so he could get a closer look at the trash receptacle.

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Six years ago, a brush fire swept through the neighborhoods and wilderness areas in northern Pasadena and Altadena, burning nearly 6,000 acres of the foothills and more than 100 homes. The blaze engulfed two-thirds of Eaton Canyon, located at the base of Mt. Wilson, and destroyed the county park’s 35-year-old nature center building.

In the days after the firestorm, Mickey Long, the center’s supervisor, wondered whether the facility would ever be rebuilt. The fire struck at a time when county money was tight and officials were pinching budgets.

For the first week after the fire, the park was closed. But Long showed up every day. And so did visitors. Some gawked at the eerily blackened land, where towering oaks had been reduced to charred stubs. Others crossed under the barriers, offering Long whatever they had in their pockets to rebuild the center. Neighborhood schools launched aluminum can drives and cake sales. All told, the center received more than $200,000 in donations and $75,000 in grants.

“We found out how many people knew and cared about the place,” Long said.

Last November, a new, 7,653- square-foot environmental education center opened. It includes a 192-seat auditorium with a rock fireplace, two classrooms, a library, a gift shop and natural history displays.

Its $2.5-million price tag was covered by donations and money from the county, state and federal governments.

Since the center’s doors reopened, visitors have flocked to the canyon, which boasts 150 species of birds and 350 species of plants. To the untrained eye, the land has recovered from fire. Tall oaks again shade the trail. Shoots of taco-shaped leaves from the laurel sumac have grown into shrubs dotting the canyon.

Flat-topped buckwheat with its pink and white flowers has spread across the once-blackened ground. But there are telltale reminders: bare skeletons of trees that didn’t grow back and dead wood protruding from bushes that otherwise have regrown.

Attendance at the park, which charges no admission, has doubled on weekends, Long said. In the past year, 130,000 people, including 12,000 schoolchildren, visited. It is not unusual to find the parking lot full.

On Saturday mornings, Felt and other docents lead family nature walks. On Monday evenings from 7 to 9, the Sierra Club holds conditioning hikes. On the second Sunday of every month, there’s a fast-paced two- or three-hour “fitness hike.” The third Sunday: a bird walk. The fourth Sunday: naturecize walk, an exercise hike. And a moonlight walk is offered monthly.

Many of the activities are led by volunteers like Felt, a systems administrator with Caltech. The center has four full-time paid staff members, four part-time employees and about 60 volunteers.

“People get to feel this is their place,” said Long, “And of course, it is.”

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Despite her initial disdain for Southern California wilderness, Gabi McClean began going on the Sunday morning Eaton Canyon hikes 10 years ago. The walks helped her unwind and cope with the tensions of a divorce, a busy job and teenage children.

“I’d been living here more than 20 years, and more than half that time, I looked at the mountains and thought they were ugly because they were brown and dry,” said the Covina resident. “It took walking on the land to realize there is life and it’s beautiful.”

McClean, a 51-year-old controller at a social service agency, soon found that she cherished the weekly hikes. “Things don’t matter that much when you are climbing a mountain and looking at nature; it gives you distance and perspective,” she said. “It brought joy to my life.”

McClean met the man who became her second husband on the Sunday hikes. They went through the 10-week docent training course together, missing the botany section when they went on their honeymoon. Friends planned to hold a reception for them at Henninger Flats, a rustic spot 3.7 miles up the trail from the Eaton Canyon parking lot. The party was moved to their home because of the fire.

Her distress about the fire turned to wonder as she watched plants, animals and birds gradually return. “It was very inspiring,” she said. “It was comforting to know nature can withstand such destruction and make something good out of it.”

These days, she and her husband lead hikes. They’ve been docents for the past six years.

“It’s allowed me,” she said, “to share the joy of getting out there.”