BY MATT KITE for WEEKLY VOLCANO 3/6/26 |
You’re never too young to start exploring nature. Just ask Jen Trahan, a regional park guide for Parks Tacoma.
“Stewardship starts in diapers,” she says.
Trahan leads two weekly nature walks for budding hikers and their parents or guardians. Every Wednesday at 10 a.m., Trahan directs Babies on the Trail, a hiking group that meets at the Fort Nisqually picnic shelter at Point Defiance Park. Parents or guardians arrive with their babies in a sling or a pack and follow Trahan into the woods for an easy hike. Typically, twenty to forty people participate.
Meanwhile, every Friday at 10 a.m., Trahan oversees a slightly older group, Tots on the Trail, for a similar adventure, albeit a shorter one, since the children are old enough to travel on foot. Depending on the weather and time of year, anywhere from fifty to seventy people join the fun.
The program, which has been running since October 2024, is free and does not require preregistration.
“Initially, I rolled it out with the idea of a toddler hike,” Trahan says, “but quickly recognized we needed to break it up. Babies need to be strapped in a backpack or carried. We go just about a mile, do plant recognition, and explain why we don’t harvest in parks.”
It’s illegal to pick plants in city parks, Trahan points out. Moreover, doing so at Point Defiance Park risks contamination, given the legacy of pollution left behind by ASARCO’s smelter.
“With the tot program,” Trahan adds, “we just go on a 0.3-mile hike. Nothing crazy, because kids are coming at it from different abilities. About three-fourths of the way, we stop at a wishing well from the old Never-Never Land amusement park and make a forest stew.”
The forest stew’s ingredients? Windblown leaves and twigs the kids find on the trail during the hike. Trahan tells them the stew is for the forest animals.
Once back at the trailhead, the group gathers beneath the trees and reads a story. If it’s raining, story time takes place in the picnic shelter. During a recent tots hike, Trahan read Mae Among the Stars, the story of Mae Jemison, the first African American female astronaut. Afterward, Trahan and the toddlers built a makeshift rocket ship, complete with a baking-soda-and-vinegar-fueled blastoff.
“The kids were ecstatic,” she says. “They loved it.”
Trahan’s well-rounded background makes her the perfect nature guide. A graduate of Washington High in Spanaway, she joined the Army Reserve and spent one year overseas in Iraq, where she helped support helicopter pilots as part of aviation operations in a Chinook unit. Later, she earned a bachelor’s degree in U.S. history from the University of Washington. More recently, she received certifications in holistic design and permaculture from Bastyr University and outdoor education from Cedarsong Nature School on Vashon Island.
“When I first got onboarded at Parks Tacoma,” she says, “they gave me quite a bit of freedom to develop programming. So I talked with Tacoma Nature Center to make sure we weren’t doing overlapping programming and were still meeting community needs. The idea came about when my daughter was born, and we would be out in the woods hiking, and I thought I should probably learn more about the plants out here while she’s running around. It was a little lonely. I thought, there has to be more parents out there hiking with their kids. I know I’m not the only one. When I first started this program, I knew there was a need, so I threw the idea out to my supervisors.”
Steady attendance each week, not to mention regulars who travel from Olympia, Auburn, and elsewhere, has convinced Trahan that the program meets a clear desire for a closer connection to nature in the community. Walking among the trees shows toddlers an alternative way to engage in the world without phones, computers, televisions, or screens of any kind. Parents appreciate the calming effect as well.
“Even with the babies,” Trahan says, “that’s another thing that’s very interesting. There’s so much stimulation going on with that child during the hike. When I took my daughter hiking, I would watch her watching branches move from the wind or hear a Douglas squirrel going off, feel the rain on her face, or the wind.”
Turning away from screens and toward nature helps young children develop neurologically, Trahan explains, as the young hikers gain an eye for detail, whether that’s the moss on the side of a north-facing tree or a colony of mushrooms on the forest floor. But it’s more than just an education. Encountering nature can be life-changing on an emotional and maturational level.
“Kids that don’t want to touch anything or talk to anyone on their first hike,” Trahan says, “by the third or fourth hike, they’re leading the way. So a lot of it is just about development of exploration and curiosity, and feeding that curiosity.”
With one of the largest remaining old-growth forests in the Puget Sound basin, Point Defiance Park is home to countless flora and fauna. Younger hikers might spy a leopard slug one day and an eagle’s nest the next. Children are instructed not to pick plants or knock them over, but sometimes Trahan will encourage them to “boop” a mushroom. If they have sensitivities, they just need to wipe off their hands afterward.
Ultimately, Trahan is building a network of parents, guardians, and children who can gather in groups or explore on their own. Such community-building returns people young and old to essential elements like friendship, nature, and respect.
“I’m really glad that this program has been so successful and that kiddos keep coming back,” Trahan says.
To learn more, visit Parks Tacoma at Parkstacoma.gov/series/tots-on-the-trail/
