Ron Williamson leads folks to the remote corners of the Bainbridge map.
Women follow Ron Williamson wherever he goes. Some men, too.
The 67-year-old former marathon runner is the leader of four island walking groups with an almost cultish following.
Devotees of his Tuesday and Wednesday walks have been known to become despondent if their names aren’t selected in the lottery to attend his coveted “Discover Bainbridge 4-Mile Walks” offered through the Bainbridge Island Park and Recreation District.
“I just love it,” said Karen King, who has been walking with the Tuesday group for a year and a half. “I am addicted to it. When I found out I didn’t make it into the last class and was on the waiting list, I became depressed.”
Lucky for her, someone dropped out, and she didn’t miss a 10-week session after all.
Enthusiasts of the walk say that traipsing around the island with Williamson has been a joy. While exploring the island’s nooks and crannys in all seasons – “No snow has ever stopped us,” Williamson says – the walkers have engaged in deep conversations with complete strangers who have become friends.
This happens, the walkers say, because Williamson is a warm and knowledgeable leader. The 35-year Bainbridge resident has mapped out 30 good island treks that last about two hours each and contain myriad surprises and natural wonders.
“Ron is an incredible, lovely, humble man,” King said. “We see places on the island we didn’t know existed. There is the camaraderie of the people, who have turned out to be friends. It is a wonderful way to meet people on the island.”
With Williams as their guide, the walkers say they don’t have to worry about where they are going or when they will be finished.
“One of the nicest things about walking that far is that you can tell long stories,” said Williamson’s wife Ethie.
The group gets exercise too, although as people walk with one another over time, the fitness aspect seems less the point.
“In the beginning, it’s 80 percent exercise and 20 percent discovery,” Williamson said of his groups. But once they have strolled together a few times, “it’s 25 percent discovery, 50 percent social, and 25 percent exercise.
“They’re so busy talking they don’t even know where they have been,” he said. “You can hear them chattering as they walk along.”
Along the way, they come across striking “teeny vistas,” of “things you can see only by walking, and you have to stop,” Williamson said.
“Power walkers” don’t last. This is a group that savors the experience.
On the path
Williamson said he enjoys nurturing his walkers, and is just as happy to lead from the middle as from the rear of the group.
“Some people like being out front and marching, but my idea is that if you start with 10 people you finish with 10 people,” he said. “It means you stop to wait, and you nurture people and bring them along.
“It means you can only go as fast as your slowest person.”
Wanting to get more exercise, Phyllis Crook started the walking group in the fall.
“It’s an awful lot of fun,” she said. “I am 79, and I wasn’t sure I could keep up, but there is always someone to wait for you. And after the first few walks, I did just fine.
“I would never walk four miles on my own. Ron is awfully good.”
Williamson started the park district walks three years ago, as a way to appease people who couldn’t join his private walking groups on Thursdays and Fridays.
Those walks were full. And no one was leaving.
The Friday walk started in 1998, when Williamson began taking that day off work in preparation for his retirement two years later.
He and his wife started walking the Battle Point Park loop on a weekly basis. Soon they were bored, but one day they ran into friends who suggested a lovely Grand Forest stroll.
So off they went.
Over time, others joined in the weekly excursions until there were 14 in the group. By now the core members of that private group have walked a good 1,400 miles, by Williams’ estimate.
The Friday group spawned the Thursday group, which is also private. It is full at 18, and when people started hounding Williamson to start yet another group, he went to the park district to see if it might be interested.
The park district walks have been full ever since.
“It’s one of our most popular classes,” said Joanie Woodbury, a clerk in the park district office. “He’s popular and his classes routinely have a waiting list.”
Over the years, Williamson has taken hundreds of photos of the group’s sojourns, some of which were compiled into a 2002 calendar to benefit the Bainbridge Island Land Trust.
This week, one group strolled the expansive grounds of IslandWood campus off Blakely Avenue.
Before the holidays, Williamson led a group of walkers – all female, on this particular day – down a Port Madison road end, so they could look at a vacant old log cabin at the mouth of a bucolic cove.
Although the members ranged in age from the 30s to their 70s, they were positively giddy at seeing one another, laughing and chatting like schoolgirls.
From there they headed up the road to a Port Madison nature preserve to look at picnic areas with fireplaces built by the conservation corps long ago.
The walkers said they wanted to share how much they love their experience, but not necessarily with a reporter.
With the park district course catalogue out, they said, if too many people sign up for Williamson’s classes, it lessens their own chances of getting a spot.
When it came time for a photo, one joshed, “Let’s frown at the camera.”
