A Moonlight Hike With a Man in White : It’s a knoll with a steep drop to the east. I stepped close enough to see that a person who lost his footing here would be very, very sorry.

He said he’d be wearing white, and he was, from head to toe. Sinclair Buckstaff makes himself look like the ice cream man for a reason. When he goes for these moonlight hikes above Chatsworth, up and down the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains, he wants to be easily visible. “I don’t want to sneak up on anybody,” he explains.

This seems prudent, though at 65 Sinclair hardly seems the threatening type. He’s a tall, friendly man who works as an auto accident investigator--usually for defendants, sometimes for plaintiffs. Back in the ‘60s, he got plenty of first-hand experience racing at the Saugus Speedway. Now, he hikes these hills.

No, you don’t want to surprise anybody, says the man in white. Say a Jeep is coming around a bend--you’d want the driver to see you. Or say there’s some drunken teen-agers vandalizing the Mason Avenue overpass--you wouldn’t want them getting paranoid. Given the recent news, I might add that you wouldn’t want a mountain lion to feel the need to defend itself.

Mason Avenue hits a dead-end at the Simi Valley Freeway, but the overpass is already built. Someday, it will serve a new housing tract crawling through these hills. Now the bridge offers access to a place frequented by hikers, equestrians and mountain bikers. The big company that owns this land doesn’t seem to mind visitors--unless they come in motorized vehicles. Of course, people don’t always obey the signs.

We talked as we walked up a dusty grade. Sinclair had invited me to join him one night after he wrote in response to some columns about another nocturnal stroller. William Andrew Masters II made headlines after an encounter with a couple of graffiti vandals, one of whom carried a screwdriver. Masters, who later said he acted in fear for his life, shot one of them to death and wounded the other. Sinclair Buckstaff, somewhat coyly, suggested that he could relate to someone who might carry a gun on a late-night walk. But he didn’t invite me out for a debate on gun laws. We were simply going for a hike.

“Right after the earthquake, this ground was so cracked it looked like cobblestones.”

The weather had long since returned the path to its usual state, covered with loose dirt as it cut through the sage. It was wide enough for a Jeep, but so potted and torn by erosion that it would have been a treacherous drive.

Sinclair knows the path well. He’s been hiking these hills for four years now, usually four times a week. After a medical scare--a blood clot that could have disabled him, but didn’t--he figured he could use the exercise. After a modest beginning, he’s extended the hike to a 3 1/2-mile round trip up and down some serious slopes.

A cool breeze carried the perfume of the sage. The crickets sang louder and the rush of the freeway softened as we walked. The grade steepened and, up ahead, a pair of rabbits skittered into the brush.

Mountain lions have been making news lately, but Sinclair said he’d never seen one up here, though he’d seen some paw prints once. Only once he’s seen deer, but four times he’s seen runaway horses--two wearing saddles. What happened to the riders is anybody’s guess. He remembers one time that the siren of a firetruck sent the coyotes into a chorus of howls.

We shed our coats after the first steep climb and draped them on a bush. The path would dip and flatten and then rise steeply again. The footing was slippery, but we moved at steady pace, pausing after the steeper slopes to catch our breath. Sinclair pointed to a ravine where, he said, the carcass of a Volkswagen was rusting.

The moon, almost full, tossed out a broad halo in the darkness. Below us, to the south, the lights of the Valley glistened. To the north, deeper into the foothills, Sinclair pointed out some small headlights--a motorist who had ventured someplace he shouldn’t be.

The longest, steepest grade lay ahead. Now, I’m not in terrific shape, but I’m not in terrible shape either. Maybe I looked worse than I felt, but Sinclair said we could turn around here or forge ahead. And so we made the climb to his usual destination.

It’s a knoll with a steep drop to the east. I stepped close enough to see that a person who lost his footing here would be very, very sorry. Not far away, marching westward, was another housing tract. It was discouraging to think this place would soon be suburbia.

“You won’t realize how far we climbed until we go down,” he said.

This was true. And going down, the footing was trickier. You didn’t need hiking boots here, but they would have helped. I’d be going along fine and then my Reebok walkers would slip, one time landing me on my butt.

At a fork in the trail, we suddenly came upon some wildlife, just a few feet away. It was another human being. He stopped when he saw us, and I wasn’t sure what to think.

Sinclair said hello and soon the young man was sharing his tale of woe. Somewhere out there, his four-wheeler was stuck in a ravine. He wasn’t happy at all.

His name was Paul, and he had to get to a phone to call his wife. She’d warned him against driving up here, and now she could say I told you so. And he’d have to find somebody willing to go out there to tow his old ’82 Datsun out of trouble--and it might not be so easy to find.

Together we hiked the last mile or so, down a few more steep grades. Sinclair pointed the easiest line down, away from loose dirt.

“You walked up this?”

Paul said this a couple of times. Actually, it wasn’t that hard. But I wonder . . . will I be able to do this when I’m 65?

We retrieved our coats and made it down the last steep stretch. The Mason Avenue bridge welcomed us back to civilization. The graffiti here is a mess of colors and images. At one spot, I noticed the word “peace.” Then, above it, I noticed that all too familiar four-letter verb.

We said our goodbys. The only thing left to do was to drop Paul off at the nearest service station.

“Man,” Paul said as I drove, “that dude was cranking.”