Explore coastal habitats with eco-friendly tours

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...