Volksmarching Through Whittier

Last weekend volksmarching popped into my head.  Volksmarches are simply walks that are noncompetitive, untimed, and unsupervised.  They can be power walks, strolls, or anything in between.  The mapped-out walks are coordinated by local clubs of a national or international walking association.  Their origin, as you might guess, is German. “Volksmarch” means something like “people’s march” in German.

How we found out about volksmarches years ago is beyond my recall.  We remember having been on four – South Pasadena, Claremont twice, and even Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, when we were on vacation.  The organization that we have used as a resource is the American Volkssport Association, which started in 1976.  Their goal is to encourage people to walk and participate in other sports for physical and mental well-being.

I went to the website for the organization (www.ava.org) and found out, ironically, that this is National Walking Week.  After following eight registration steps, I was able to search for local walks.  Once registered, the directions were either free or cost $3, depending on the sponsoring club.

Anyone going on a Volksmarch can take as many breaks as desired, stop for a meal, or just people-watch along the way.  There is no one to say that you need to walk the entire route unless you are working toward a club badge. Ways to acquire badges are delineated on the AVA website although that aspect has never interested us.

Volksmarches are 5K (3.1 miles) or 10K (6.2 miles) long and are rated according to difficulty.  It seems that 1A rated, 5K walks are about our speed these days.  While there is a walk in Yorba Linda just a few miles away from us and many others in nearby SoCal beach towns, we settled on Whittier.  Here is the map for our 5K walk entitled “Whittier, the All-American Town.”

(The locals will notice that the map above does not include a loop around Whittier College.  That is part of the 10K walk.)

We started at Palm Park next to a rail trail that was part of the Union Pacific line to Fullerton.  After a railroad merger between Southern Pacific and Union Pacific in 1996, the rail line was abandoned and eventually made into a multi-use trail that runs through Whittier for a few miles.

After walking along Broadway Avenue, we finally reached Uptown Whittier with its many shops and restaurants.  Our commentary from the sponsoring club said that Greenleaf Avenue had been used for filming Father of the Bride II and a scene in the TV show The Wonder Years.

It was mid-morning by then and fairly quiet.  We made a quick trip to see our daughter-in-law, who was at work, and then began the walk back to Palm Park where we had started.

One nice thing with a no-pressure walk is that we are free to change the map at any time to see or do something that we find more interesting.  As long as we are not working on earning a badge, the map is just a motivational tool to walk.

We passed the Whittier Museum with its beautiful mural and then we walked over to Whittier High School.  The commentary with our map indicated that the high school was used for filming the movies Back to the Future 1 & 2.

The last place of interest on our walk was the now-vacant Whittier Ice Cream Company building, which was built in 1930.  It manufactured Cool-a-Coos. They were ice cream sandwiches made with oatmeal cookies, vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate coating. The manufacturing moved at some point from Whittier to El Monte. The Cool-a-Coos production was discontinued in 2016.  It’s noteworthy, though, that at one time Cool-a-Coos were sold at LA Dodger games with great success.

The last part of our walk was on a different portion of the rail trail we had been on earlier.  By then, our legs and feet were hurting.  We were not exhausted, but tired.  Despite fatigue setting in, we loved our walking adventure in Whittier and hope to explore other areas in the near future through the joy of volksmarching.