Explore coastal habitats with eco-friendly tours in Monterey

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Halfway through a handcar tour at Fort Ord Dunes State Park outside Monterey, the old railroad tracks make a circle on a hilltop. Until now, the view has been mostly rolling sand dunes, coastal scrub and Monterey cypress and pine groves with the occasional glimpse of the ocean. But here, tour participants can pause to take in a panoramic view of the ocean waves to the horizon.

“You can see all the way down to Pacific Grove on one side, to Santa Cruz, the whole bay,” said Handcar Tours founder Mason Clark. It’s one of his favorite parts of the tour.

You’ve probably seen a handcar before, even if you’re not familiar with the word. The vehicles were popularized in the 1880s as utility trucks for maintaining some 100,000 miles of railroad during the golden age of trains. They quickly became staples of cartoons and early cinema: flat platforms set on a track with a seesaw-like appendage whose up-and-down movement propelled the cart forward.

Motorized vehicles swiftly replaced handcars once the former became available for track maintenance. Now, at Fort Ord, Clark’s updated versions are attractions unto themselves, new takes on an old technology. They’re also part of an increasing number of options in the area for ecologically minded travelers who want to explore the natural world while also helping preserve it for future generations.

Clark built his first handcar at age 14, fascinated by their history and engineering. His family soon took handcar-based vacations exploring disused railroad track, trips which provided the inspiration for his current business. And he later studied mechanical engineering in college, designing and prototyping his modernized handcar as his senior project.

After that, the next step was finding a disused railroad track of his own, then convincing the various agencies and authorities to give him access and clearing his new property. In 2021, Clark and his family spent three months trimming trees, clearing bushes and picking up trash from the Fort Ord track, which was built in 1879 and hadn’t seen a train for decades.

Today, each handcar seats two to four people with tours of up to 12 cars traveling together. The uphill portion can be a workout, Clark warns. He encourages visitors to bring water, gloves, sunscreen and to wear close-toed shoes. But the payoff makes it all worth it: an exhilarating downhill run during which the cars top out at 15 miles per hour.

“Everybody comes off with a happy face,” he said. “They forget that they may have worked hard getting there.” (Don’t worry; his handcars all feature brakes.)

For those visitors who might not be physically able to power a handcar, Clark has also designed and built a new electric-assist model, an additional 14 of which will arrive this summer.

Customer Juana Sanchez came on Clark’s tour in December 2022. She found it particularly intriguing because of how different it was from other local experiences. Sanchez, who grew up in the area, said she was looking for something to do with her siblings over Christmas that was different from the beaches they usually visit.

“I’ve done bike riding, I’ve done walking,” she said. “This way, I felt more of an appreciation for the Central Coast.”

Many of Clark’s customers also appreciate the eco-friendly aspect of the trip.

“We go through sensitive habitat in a coastal area, but we’re on existing railroad tracks so we don’t have much, if any, impact,” he said.

That allows visitors to enjoy delicate ecosystems without disrupting them. He and his family have also begun work restoring the area around the tracks, which was heavily planted with invasive ice plant when Fort Ord was under military control. Removing ice plant lets the sand shift back to its more natural formations.

“It’s neat to go through areas where you can just see the top of the track and sand all around,” he said.

Some 20 miles north of Fort Ord, visitors to the Central Coast can experience a whole other side of Monterey Bay nature in Elkhorn Slough.

“Right now, we’re seeing tons of big sea lions and brown pelicans,” said Marina Maze, a captain with Monterey Bay Ecotours.

Plus, spring is harbor seal pupping season, and the slough is a great place to see mothers swimming with their pups, she said. And then, of course, there’s the otters. Elkhorn Slough hosts one of the biggest resident populations of sea otters in the United States. Sightings are so reliable that the company boasts a sea-otters-or-bust money-back guarantee.

Monterey Bay Eco Tours was the brainchild of boat captain and nature lover Wendy Kitchell. As a teenager working in Key West, Kitchell watched her favorite coral reef suffer the consequences of pollution and over-tourism.

“I remember the shocking day it was just broken rubble, bleached-out coral pieces,” she said. “I was like ‘Oh my god, we killed this reef.’ ”

After moving to California to be close to family, Kitchell teamed up with her brother, a master boat builder who specializes in extremely light and strong boats using specialized materials — light enough to be powered entirely by electricity. The goal: a boat that could help visitors explore this corner of the natural world without slowly destroying it.

Kitchell’s electric boat isn’t just low emissions; it’s also remarkably quiet.

“We get the word ‘serene’ a lot,” she said. “It’s a very relaxing trip. You glide through the water really gently.”

The smooth ride and short duration — about 90 minutes — attracts visitors of all ages, including wildlife photographer Marquis Kuhn, who has been on the tour at least six times. He calls Kitchell’s boat the “perfect photographic platform,” since it’s so steady and can approach wildlife in the slough so quietly.

One highlight: photographing otter mothers and pups, he said, “from the little, tiny ones, a week or two old, to where the pup is as large as the mother and they’re playing, tussling in the water.”

Kitchell and Maze keep an eye out for mothers and pups, as well, but for a different reason. A stressed out otter won’t eat, and mother otters get especially nervous when humans come near. With this risk in mind, Monterey Bay Ecotours works closely with Sea Otter Savvy, a local program promoting ecological awareness, to ensure its tours disrupt the otters as little as possible.

Besides mothers and babies, Kitchell and Maze are careful to give rafts of sleeping otters a particularly wide berth. They also watch for changing otter body language, since the distance required to keep the animals feeling safe can fluctuate depending on the time of year.

“It’s good to bring young people into nature when it’s not exploding through walls or over your levy,” Maze said, especially during a period full of fires and floods.

She and Kitchell believe that experiences like their tours are essential for promoting feelings of responsibility and care about the plants and animals that surround us. Some days that means picking up trash they see floating in the slough; others it means reporting sick sea lions or rescuing birds.

“As humans, we need to explore and enjoy and connect,” Kitchell said. “We need to be part of nature.”