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Community Corner

La Mesans Help Make Mission Trails a Happy Experience (Educational, Too)

Combined, the quartet has volunteered a quarter-century, putting in hundreds of hours annually. The park could become the largest of its kind in the U.S. later in 2011.

Tom Thompson loves the hike up Oak Canyon and the way the waterfalls come to life after a good rain. Audrey Baker sees the old oaks and marvels at their age and beauty.

Bill Howell imagines the Kumeyaay people grinding rocks along the San Diego River hundreds of years ago. And Nancy Clement enjoys the pastoral atmosphere and history around the Old Mission Dam.

For these four La Mesans, Mission Trails Regional Park is a special place.

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Each is a volunteer at the park, dedicating hundreds of hours each year to helping others enjoy its wide-open spaces, rich history, geology and plant and animal life.

At 6,100 acres, it is one of the nation’s largest urban natural parks, stretching from Lake Murray in the south to state Route 52 in the north and from Santee in the east to Tierrasanta in the west.

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It’s a place she never tires of, Baker says.

“It’s 40 miles of trails,” she says. “And it’s never boring. It changes all the time, day to day and by the season. Even if you walk a trail one day, it can be different the next.”

The evolving park

The La Mesa Four are among the park’s 175 volunteers.

Without them, says Jay Wilson, the park’s executive director, “We wouldn’t go.”

The park has just nine full-time staffers, meaning it has to rely on volunteers to do everything from working the counters in the visitor center to guiding trail walks, doing maintenance and patrols, training new volunteers, providing information to the media, improving trails, protecting habitat and staffing the gift shop and library.

“There’s a lot to cover,” says Wilson, who notes that staffing is always a concern. But the volunteers have long been a part of the park, which came into being in bits and pieces starting in the mid 1970s. Milestones include the purchase of Cowles Mountain in 1974, development of the park’s master plan in 1976, naming of the park in 1979, continued land acquisition through the 1980s and opening of the visitor center in 1995.

And, says Wilson, the park continues to grow and evolve.

By the end of 2011, it’s expected the park will annex about 1,100 acres north of state Route 52 and east of Scripps ranch to make Mission Trails—at about 7,200 acres—the largest park of its kind in the United States.

Last year, nearly 75,000 people came through the visitor center—up 17 percent from 2009—with about 600,000 visitors to the park in all.

Wilson, who’s been in his position since January 2008, is excited about other developments as well—a new educational program with local schools, new sources of funding and a planned trail upgrade on Cowles Mountain, the most-hiked mountain trail in Southern California.

All of it–Cowles and the other peaks (North and South Fortuna, Kwaay Paay and Pyles Peak), Lake Murray and Kumeyaay Lake, the trails, the San Diego River, the grasslands and the Old Mission Dam—sits smack in the middle of an urban environment, providing an oasis of open space.

Wilson this week sat in the visitor center’s library, with its big picture windows overlooking the park’s peaks and river canyon, and smiled as he listed off what he hears people say about Mission Trails: “It’s so varied. It’s so peaceful. It’s so unique. And it’s so close.”

And a large part of the park’s success is the corps of volunteers that keeps it running.

A closer look at the four La Mesa volunteers and their roles in the park:

TOM THOMPSON

What he does: A little bit of everything. He works behind the counter in the visitor center, is a trail guide and also patrols the park.

How long a volunteer: Three years

His story: At 68, the former publishing executive with Harcourt Brace remains an avid hiker and park lover, who even walks its trails on days he’s not signed up as a volunteer.  The only place he really tries to avoid is the hike up Cowles Mountain (too crowded for his taste; on one Saturday trek up and down that trail, he counted 422 people). He  prefers the Oak Canyon trail, with its thicker vegetation and (during the winter) trailside stream and waterfalls.

And rattlesnakes? “They’re lovely,” he says. “I’ve only seen 12 or 13 in the hundreds of hours I’ve been out on the trails.” His trail tours are supposed to last 90 minutes, but he admits his usually go about 30 minutes over. “I tell people I won’t be offended if they have to leave, but most people stick around,” he says.

Quotable: As a lover of books and the outdoors, Thompson jokes he knows how he’ll die: “I’ll either get killed by a falling bookcase or I’ll fall over dead on a trail.”

AUDREY BAKER

What she does: She’s a trail guide and also helps with public relations, writing and distributing information to local media about the park’s upcoming events and programs.

How long a volunteer: Two years.

Her story: The former administrative assistant, 57, who worked in San Diego law offices and at UCSD, was a history major at SDSU and enjoys the park’s tie-in with San Diego history. She also is an enthusiastic hiker. She became familiar with the park when she was raising her three children and was looking for a place to let them burn off energy. “Now I go there to enjoy it for myself,” she says.

Quotable: Her favorite spots in the park are three separate locations where old oaks—which can be as old as 350 years—still grow, including one near Old Mission Dam.  “I often imagine the Kumeyaay Indians taking a break in its shade when they were building the dam,” she says.

BILL HOWELL

What he does: Is the lead trainer for the park’s 10-week, 60-hour training program for volunteers to become trail guides. The other La Mesans are all graduates of the class. He still does trail guiding himself.

How long a volunteer: Since 1995, when he and a friend approached the park and proposed starting the trail guide program. Since 1985, he had been training similar volunteer trail guides, the Canyoneers, for the San Diego Museum of Natural History.

His story: The retired biology teacher, 77, loves sharing information, both with park visitors and the other volunteers. He says he’s still learning about the park every day, and speaks about the park in detail—from the crushed seashells used in the cement for the dam (built about 1813-16), to the intricacies of the chaparral plant community “that gets no respect” to his appreciation of rattlesnakes which, he says, he tries to teach people “not to get freaked out about.”

Quotable: Perhaps his favorite place is along the river, not far from the visitor center, where the grinding rocks can be found. “You can sit in the shade, and if you doze a little bit, you can still [picture] Indian kids throwing rocks in the river while their moms are grinding nearby,” he says.

NANCY CLEMENT

What she does: She’s a trail guide about once a month, and also does outreach programs, speaking to groups such as the Lions Club, Toastmasters, the Early San Diego Regional History Conference and the La Mesa Adult Enrichment Center about various aspects of the park.

How long a volunteer: From 2002-2003 (when she had to stop because of a broken leg) and 2008-present.

Her story: After many years in education, she followed her interests, real estate (in which she has her own business, called Homes and Loans), writing (about consumer- financial issues) and “interpretation,” where she delves into the park’s history to share it with others.

She keeps a manual about all the different aspects of the park, and constantly updates it, reviewing it before giving a talk or a walk. Recently, she enjoyed two diverse groups—a North County seniors trip to the Old Dam, where she could talk about history and the ecosystem, and a Brownie troop she needed to engage for 90 minutes as they tried to earn badges. The Old Mission Dam, in particular, is a special spot for her—not only for its place in local history, but also because her father worked at a dam, and part of their vacation travels inevitably involved stopping to see a dam along the route.

Quotable: “It’s easy for people to drive by [the park] and say, ‘This is nothing,’ ” she says. “But really, what a treasure this is, in so many ways.”

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