Of the roughly 78 million people who volunteer in the United States, about 7.5 million of whom are in California, no one has a better view than Doug Cambier. On a sun-drenched fall morning, Cambier strapped on his binoculars and began a 90-minute walking tour of the Cypress Grove Trail at Pt.
Lobos State Natural Reserve, a heavenly stretch of seashore between Carmel-by-the-Sea and Big Sur. Massive winter waves exploded against rocks, sea lions barked and squawking gulls joined the symphony. This is not a place that can be described, painted or photographed in any way that does it justice, though many have tried.
Ansel Adams visited again and again with his camera. Australian landscape artist Francis McComas called this simply “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.” For Cambier, who wore a green vest with a Point Lobos Docent insignia, it never gets old.
“So we have six habitats here,” the retired family physician said, giving a dozen of us a quick warning about poison oak before breaking down the marine, plant and wildlife glories that surrounded us. Cambier mingles habitat and history, touching on the Ohlone , the European conquest, the destruction wrought by over-fishing and the resilience of Monterey pine and cypress trees. All of it in the service of greater appreciation that might lead to better stewardship of a planet in peril as climate change accelerates and biodiversity declines .
I was at the reserve not just to breathe in the salt air at one .