Teens Blaze a Trail With Children’s Forest

The constant screeches of blue jays and ravens can get annoying, say high school buddies Sarrah Cherry and Rene Martinez, but both have learned to deal with them.

Cherry and Martinez live in different mountain communities in the San Bernardino National Forest, but they share the birds as neighbors.

It wasn’t until the two Rim of the World High School students took a forestry class with a Children’s Forest group that they learned the value of their plant and animal neighbors.

Now, the bird songs sound more like a symphony to the two as they climb rocks, fight through thick thorn bushes and hike through the Children’s Forest in the woods near Running Springs, a mountain community of about 5,100 people.

“I thought all we had up here were lots of trees,” said Martinez, 17, who lives in Crestline. “I never knew there was so much more.”

Both are part of an eight-member trailblazing team, made up of teens who spent their spring break and summer designing and mapping a hiking trail, just one of the many activities at the Children’s Forest.

More than 2,000 youngsters each year visit the Children’s Forest for a variety of reasons: to learn about the function of dead trees or plant new ones, train to be firefighters, or wear tennis rackets as makeshift snowshoes and go on winter hikes.

In 1993, the U.S. Forest Service set aside 3,400 acres of wilderness within San Bernardino National Forest as the nation’s first Children’s Forest. It operates on a $190,000 annual budget from sponsorships, grants and private donations, along with a few dollars from the Children’s Forest gift shop.

Forty children from around the country christened the new forest by creating a half-mile hiking trail with Forest Service staff members and other experts.

It is a simple circular trail with paved roads, accessible for strollers and wheelchairs, and complete with interpretive signs so visitors know what is growling or chirping in the distance.

The forest is more than a walk in the woods, staffers say.

Other programs sponsored by the Children’s Forest offer credit for high school students and opportunities for outdoor internships.

Learning programs include an ecosystem management program that allows young people to participate in research, planning and implementation of resource management activities, such as snagology, or the study of dead trees.

Field trips give instructors an ideal backdrop to show biological connections among plants, animals and people.

Also, children can collect data on vegetation, wildlife, air quality, soil and water, or harvest ferns and plant trees, said Timothy Barany, education coordinator.

The latest project is the Children’s Forest trailblazing team.

The eight members, all students at Rim of the World High School in Lake Arrowhead, are starting to plot a trail that will lead from quaint, downtown Running Springs just off California Highway 18 into the forest.

The city’s Chamber of Commerce and other community groups planned the project in 1998, and the trailblazing team is starting the first leg. It will stretch from the Children’s Forest visitors center to the original paved trail.

“This is their chance to really have a voice,” said Lacy Goldsmith, director of the Children’s Forest. “This is going to be their trail.”

Before starting the trailblazing project, the teenagers learned about nature and teamwork.

Blindfolded and guided only by a sense of touch and smell, the eight teenagers navigated through the forest; some tasted bark. Later, they were divided into two groups.

Four teens worked on grading and flagging, in which they looked through the sight of an “Abney Scale,” similar to a carpenter’s level, to determine the grade of a trail.

The others followed behind wearing 10-pound Global Positioning System units, which looked like something from “Ghostbusters.”

Their job was to locate satellite positions and create a trail map, similar to how “police use LoJack to locate stolen cars,” said Jay Rizzo, the Children’s Forest staff naturalist who taught youngsters to use the equipment.

This summer, construction teams will join the teens, working alongside them to build the trail. The final phase will be erecting signs to guide visitors. “This is a very big project,” said Joyce Miraflor, youth leadership program coordinator for the Children’s Forest. “These kids are a part of something special.”

The eight teens all live close to the forest in their various mountain homes. Yet some knew almost nothing about the forest, while others, like Joseph Scammahorn, are quite knowledgeable.

“We call that deer brush,” Scammahorn told the rest of the group, pointing to a thorny bush sharp enough to rip through jeans.

“It’s called that because deer are the only ones that can eat it. They have tough skin inside their mouth.”

The Running Springs 16-year-old has been a Children’s Forest volunteer for more than four years, joining because he was curious about forest lizards. Now, he knows just about every type of plant, animal and tree in the forest.

Scammahorn frequently takes families on guided hikes, telling them many odd stories and facts he’s learned about the forest. He’s enjoyed his time in the woods, but says his future will not revolve around deer, pine trees or hikes.

“I’m thinking about becoming an armored truck driver,” said Scammahorn, who also uses the forest as his BMX bike course and boulder-hopping playground.

The trailblazers joined for various reasons. Some came because of a general interest in the woods, others because their parents suggested it.

Chris Rogers, 16, of Green Valley Lake joined last summer because he feels that since he uses the forest to hike, he might as well know all he can about it.

“It’s been fun and a good experience,” said Rogers, a punk rock drummer with a garage band, Persona Non Grata.

Some, like his brother Randy, 14, joined to kill time. “Not much to do in Green Valley Lake,” he said. “I’m glad I joined. Beats staying home and getting in trouble.”

Travis Garner, Rim of the World High’s starting junior varsity quarterback, believes the trailblazing team will bring him closer to his father, an avid fisherman.

“I guess this makes me an outdoorsman like him,” the 16-year-old Crestline resident said.