Doing the Work of Nature

John Asdoorian of Lynn, Mass., won’t be visiting the Getty Museum or Universal CityWalk during his trip to Southern California this week. He won’t be sightseeing on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, shopping on Rodeo Drive or putting his toes in the Pacific Ocean, either.

Instead, the 70-year-old retired engineer paid $440 plus air fare for the privilege of pruning trails, building campsites and warding off black flies in the mountains in Ventura County north of Ojai. And he said he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I like to work with my hands,” Asdoorian said earlier this week, taking a break in the 80-degree heat after toiling for two hours on an overgrown trail in the Los Padres National Forest. “Clearing the brush, seeing the different kinds of plants, getting something done--this appeals.”

Asdoorian is one of 18 retirees from around the country who are spending their vacations wielding shovels, axes and hedge trimmers in the Rose Valley Recreation Area, helping to maintain a natural resource that many locals take for granted. The trip was organized by a Ventura-based affiliate of Elderhostel Inc., the international learning and travel program for people 55 and over.

Although five other Elderhostel groups have participated in similar projects here in the past, the latest visiting volunteers are all members of Elfun, a service organization made up of current and former General Electric employees.

For Lovers of Outdoors, a Dream Vacation

“Most of the people here love hiking, camping and walking and are in pretty good shape, so the chance to spend time in a forest in the West was something we jumped at,” said Barbara Wicker of Hampstead, N.C., who made the journey with her husband, Brooks.

Bob and Ginny Stevenson of Stratford, Conn., both 64, said their experience working for a company that values volunteerism, along with their participation in smaller community service projects back home, made it easy to eschew Elderhostel’s more leisurely locales for a working vacation in Ojai.

“It gives you more of a real connection to a community than when you are just sitting around the pool,” Ginny Stevenson said.

John Hyatt, a U.S. Forest Service trails manager with the Ojai Ranger District, said volunteers like the Elderhostel participants play a vital role in preserving the district’s 240 miles of trails, since budget cutbacks eliminated the ranks of paid crews in 1997.

“If it weren’t for the volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to maintain the trails,” he said.

Although Boy Scout troops, mountain biking groups and the Elderhostel travelers have helped stave off Rose Valley’s deterioration, the area is still physically neglected due to the lack of a full-time work force, Hyatt said.

Volunteer Work Pays, If Not in Money

Nevertheless, Rose Valley, which is located 25 miles north of Ojai, remains one of the district’s most heavily used destinations, second only to Santa Paula Canyon in popularity, according to Forest Service Ranger Charlie Robinson.

While the Elfun members won’t be earning merit badges or paychecks for their labors--which include erecting wheelchair-accessible campsites at the Middle Lion Campground and planting trees on Pine Mountain--Fran Boik, 67, of Cornville, Ariz., said the forest work “pays in other ways.”

“People are amazed that you are going on vacation and going to work,” Boik said. “But you get a lot of satisfaction and build a lot of camaraderie on a project like this.”

Joe Mollure, 59, a soon-to-be-retired GE regional manager from Upland, was on his first Elderhostel outing Monday. He was enjoying whacking away weeds from the trails so much that he started to consider a career change.

“If you are a hiker or an outdoorsman, you never think about the people doing this work,” he said. “This helps give me an awareness.”

Rose Wisuri, 72, of Camarillo, a trip coordinator for an Elderhostel affiliate, said the groups that come to Southern California for the Forest Service projects are “more flexible” than the travelers whose visits are purely recreational.

“It’s their attitude toward life. They are interested in giving back,” Wisuri said. “When you are dressing up and doing cultural things like the Getty, you seem to be a lot more picky.”

Between the five hours of work they will put in on four of their five full days, as well as evening lectures on topics such as wildlife conservation, the Elderhostel visitors will scarcely have any time to relax in Ojai’s legendary spas or sample the town’s art galleries.

But that won’t stop Dave Turner, 69, of Largo, Fla., from making the most of his California vacation.

“When I get back to the hotel tonight,” he said, “I’m going to get in the hot tub with my binoculars and look for condors.”