The Full Moon Helps Illuminate Malibu’s Wildest Night Life

• Charmlee Wilderness Park Walks Offer an Opportunity for After-Hours Exploration

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

The promise of a brief respite from the hot weather and a rising harvest moon, colored golden and magnified to enormous size by the smoke of distant wildfires, enticed more than 30 walkers to the City of Malibu’s Charmlee Wilderness Park for a full moon hike last Saturday.
It was a diverse group comprised of high school and college students, families with small children, seniors, and everything in between. Energetic hikers had the option of taking a longer loop trail through the park. Those who wished to go at a more leisurely pace could opt to take just the first half of the walk, a two-mile round-trip to a viewpoint overlooking the ocean and back.
“We sometimes get as many as 60 hikers,” Sandy Glover, the Charmlee naturalist who led the walk, told the Malibu Surfside News. She indicated that the number of animals observed seems to decrease proportionately to the number of people on the hike and the amount of noise they generate, but not always.
As latecomers straggled in, the group assembled at the park’s nature center, where displays of live reptiles—including the center’s rattlesnake—spiders and an assortment of stuffed owls and insects offered a chance to examine some of the creatures that might be encountered on the walk. In fact, participants encountered a rattlesnake on the trail just minutes after setting out.
“Snakes like the warmth,” Glover explained. “They’re out at night this time of year because the ground stays warm. Unfortunately, that’s why you often see them dead by the road. They come out for the warmth and drivers don’t see them.”
Snakes weren’t the only park inhabitants taking advantage of the warm night. A red-tailed hawk was riding the warm air currents, the moonlight allowing it to extend its hunting hours into the evening.
Fresh coyote scat, the hoof prints of a deer crossing over the dusty footprints of the day’s hikers and a wing feather from a great horned owl were evidence of other unseen presences.
Glover says she was leading a large group once, when a gray fox dashed across the trail, through the middle of the hikers. “They were extremely surprised,” she said. On another occa-sion, hikers were treated to the sight of a long-tailed weasel, one of the area’s shyest residents, hunting in the moonlight. “The have this funny way of moving, half hopping, half bounding,” Glover said. “It looked like a dance.”
Tarantulas and scorpions are also frequently observed. The much-maligned local giant spider, which can reach a size of six inches, is actually quite gentle and non-aggressive, Glover said. The scorpion, however, can deliver an extremely painful sting.
Members of this particular group were in high spirits and more concerned with zombies than scorpions, although the naturalist assured them, with a straight face, that zombie attacks were, in fact, uncommon.
Once the chatter died down, one of the most conspicuous things on the walk was the silence. It was possible to hear the wind crossing the meadow, and the rustle of a mouse in the brush.
The view from the ridge overlooking the sea drew gasps from some. The coast stretching to Point Dume lay below, with the moon, higher now, and silver, lighting up the sea. Off in the distance, the lights of the Palos Verdes peninsula glittered through the haze. The constellation Scorpio and the planet Jupiter, bright even in the moonlight, completed the view.
Participants in the longer walk were treated to a welcome breath of chill air on the walk back, many degrees colder than the ambient temperature. The phenomenon, generated by the mountainous terrain, is called nocturnal cold air drainage.
“We had one walk last year in the fog,” Glover said. “It was so thick we couldn't see the moon and we had to rely on flashlights.” On another occasion, a Santa Ana materialized suddenly with gale-force winds. “It’s always a new experience,” Glover said. “For many people, it’s their first experience of being out in nature at night.”
Next month’s full moon falls on a Saturday, Oct. 3. Charmlee Wilderness Park full moon walks are free, but there is a $4 parking fee and reservations are required. Sturdy shoes, a flashlight and a walking stick are recommended. FI: 310-317-1364.