Column: Volunteering where the views are heavenly, the cause is critical, and the sea lions are barking

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.

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“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 of my favorite places in the world, but to mark the season by acknowledging those who give back in one way or another. On some days, it seems like our culture is defined by isolation and self-interest, but the good will of nearly 80 million people, many of them serving their communities in retirement, tells another story.

Doug Cambier is a volunteer docent at Pt. Lobos State Natural Reserve.

(Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times)

For those who want to contribute, but don’t know which cause to support, Rick Stoff and a friend started a Los Angeles nonprofit five years ago called the Volunteer Collective, which lists opportunities ranging from working to support survivors of domestic violence to wellness programs to pet care support.

He doesn’t know of a volunteer who spends time, say, mentoring or reading to a child, and doesn’t feel enriched by the experience. “You’re getting out of your house and you’re doing something for someone else,” said Stoff, for whom running the nonprofit is his own form of volunteering.

“I have a purpose,” said the 76-year-old, who was profiled in 2021 by my colleague Robin Abcarian. “I feel like a young man.”

I was surprised to find that more than 27,000 Californians are committed to helping out at state parks. According to a state website, those volunteers devoted 780,000 hours of time in 2023. Point Lobos alone has more than 200 docents, all of whom go through a months-long training course and commit to a minimum of six hours of service per month.

John Hiles, Monterey sector manager for the state parks department, told me Point Lobos has one of the best organized volunteer groups in the region and offers “fantastic educational programming.” Besides conducting tours, the docents staff information kiosks and a museum, help with trail maintenance and log sea otter sightings to aid in habitat restoration efforts.

When Cambier raised his hand to volunteer, he knew exactly what he was in for because his wife, Jan, a retired school teacher, had just begun her eighth year as a Point Lobos docent. She’s helped lead training efforts, among other administrative duties, and said she’s putting in 20 to 30 hours a month.

“If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t be doing it,” Jan said. “There’s a built-in camaraderie because we have something in common with all these people who have a desire to protect the reserve.”

For docents, Doug Cambier said, “it’s enough for us to be here in nature, with all of this beauty, and to give back a little bit.”

(Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times)

The docent program is funded by the nonprofit Point Lobos Foundation, which also sponsors park visits from fourth-graders who attend schools in the region’s poorest communities, including farming regions in and around Salinas.

“That’s our next generation of conservationists,” Jan said.

As many as 60 kids at a time arrive in buses, she said, and many of them have never seen the ocean.

“We do one docent for every six kids. That’s 10 docents on that walk,” with more volunteers setting up spotting scopes so the kids can get a closer look at the sea lions barking on nearby rocks.

“The first thing you want them to do is have fun… and if they can be impressed with the natural beauty, that encourages them to want to protect it,” said Jan, 70, who thinks the magic of Point Lobos can be a revelation for kids who’ve grown up in a trance, glued to their screens.

“A kid will spend five minutes looking at a rolly polly and recently we’ve been finding a lot of turret spiders and their webs. We talk to them about wood rats and how their nests are so similar to human homes,” Jan said. “It’s just an appreciation for what is in this world, and we spend a lot of time talking about native plants and invasive plants… Pods of Risso’s dolphins will go by, and they get excited seeing deer or rabbits, or they’ll say ‘oh, there goes a bird.’”

Besides conducting tours, the docents, including Doug Cambier, staff information kiosks and a museum, help with trail maintenance, and log sea otter sightings to aid in habitat restoration efforts.

(Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times)

On my tour with Doug Cambier, 70, he was no less dazzled than those kids.

He pointed out warblers, lace lichen and tree limbs coated in an orange algae called trentepohlia. He saluted cypress trees that “originated biologically at Point Lobos” and speculated that maybe they developed their horizontal, wing-like limb structure here to withstand coastal gusts. He offered up a crash course on the 80-million-year history of geologic forces that sculpted this masterpiece at the edge of the continent.

People are inclined to tip docents after the guided tours, Cambier said, but he says no thanks. If they insist, he suggests a donation to the Point Lobos Foundation to further the cause of education and conservation.

For docents, he said, “it’s enough for us to be here in nature, with all of this beauty, and to give back a little bit.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com