HIKING TAKES RIDING'S PLACE ON TRAIL TRIP : FAMILY BUSINESS GUIDES HEALTH-CONSCIOUS TREKKERS.

Byline: Ken Schultz Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

Kit Stockdale of Pebble Beach is typical of the new breed of customers for Fred and Tom Nason's trail ride expeditions into the Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest.

Before the 1977 Marble Cone fire, the Nason family's customers chose to ride a horse instead of hike into the rugged backcountry of the Santa Lucia range along the Big Sur coast.

His customers today are more ``health-conscious,'' said Tom Nason, a descendant of the Esselen American Indian tribe who is known as Little Bear. His 72-year-old father, Fred, continues to be the chief guide and story teller on the trips, which range from several hours to five days. Costs per person range from $50 for a three-hour trail ride to at least $125 a day for wilderness trips.

Stockdale - her father-in-law, retired Adm. James Stockdale, was Ross Perot's running mate in the 1992 presidential election - along with her sister, Marny Kittredge, a gymnastics teacher living in Quilcare, Wash., and five of Stockdale's friends gathered earlier this month to venture into the Ventana Wilderness for three days.

They carried light backpacks that contained water, sun screen and a sack lunch provided by the Nasons' Ventana Wilderness Ranch Expeditions.

Fred Nason followed several hours later on horseback, heading a tethered mule train carrying provisions for the women, including food and three people to prepare and cook it, tents, sleeping bags, insect repellent and bottled water.

Tom Nason's 12-year-old son, Bryce, a fly fisherman accompanied by his ever-present fishing pole and black cowboy hat, served as a wrangler.

The trek was in celebration of Stockdale's 40th birthday. Her invited guests all had young children, so the trip also was a respite from the demands of parenting.

The women were eager ``to hear sounds other than questions'' from small children, and to enjoy a view of the outdoors, Stockdale said. ``When you're a woman, you look at life through the window of a car'' while transporting offspring to school or the baby sitter's, the doctor's office, Brownie meetings or Little League baseball games, she said.

The women included Cindy Fitch, a Washington, D.C., artist and a former neighbor of former President Bush; Betsy Evans Hunt, a fine-art photography dealer from Maine who once was an assistant to controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe; and Laura Lynn Conti of Hawaii, a massage therapist who had served recently as a crew member aboard a charter yacht, where, she quipped, she was ``paid for cooking and cleaning,'' something she does at home without pay.

The trek was enhanced by the presence of anthropologist Gary Breschini of Salinas and his wife, Trudy Haversat, frequent volunteer assistants to the Nason family, with whom they have been friends for years.

Once camp was set up, Breschini led the women to a sandstone formation about a mile from the group's Pine Valley camp, where he pointed out a series of eroded and weathered rock paintings made about 200 years earlier by Esselens.

Painted handprints are common in the area and could refer to a huge, handlike rock formation that dominates the local landscape. ``What we see is the symbol,'' Breschini said, but ``we don't know the meaning.''

At one point, two young men wandered into the women's camp in search of someone with a cellular telephone. The men had underestimated the time they would need to hike from the Los Padres Dam to the Big Sur coast, and they wanted to notify their families.

Cellular telephones have become a common tool for forest visitors. ``We have had a couple of instances where people have been able to get out with their cellular phones,'' Forest Service spokeswoman Paula Martinez said.

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PHOTO FRED MASON