A Park for the Ages

There will be a few requisite speeches and a celebratory cake. Then the metal gate will swing open to what all gathered can already see: an expanse of brownish-green hills in a wide canyon carved 18 million years ago by ocean currents. The modest ceremony this coming Friday will mark the opening of the 3,400-acre Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park, created two years ago as part of an agreement between Orange County and Mission Viejo Co., developer of the 20,000-home Aliso Viejo planned community. In the county park system, this park is second in size only to Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park. It will provide a bucolic respite for residents of the burgeoning South County area, where some homes are built so closely together that it appears not even a square-foot of grass could fit between them.

Aliso and Wood Canyons will be what is known in park jargon as a “passive” recreational area. Twelve miles of trails have been forged and signs have been posted against bringing dogs, motorized vehicles, fires or camps into the park. With a minimum of fuss, it will provide hikers, bike riders and equestrians with a place to be outdoors and observe nature while they exercise.

The trails wind through a Y-shaped valley that was once home to the Juaneno and Gabrieleno Indians, who inhabited hundreds of gracefully sculptured natural caves carved into the hillsides in prehistoric times. Among the flora are stately California live oaks, elderberry trees and jumbled stands of white-barked sycamores festooned with mistletoe. There are seasonal flowers and mushrooms. White crown sparrows flutter through barley grasses and flocks of turkey vultures glide menacingly overhead--two of the 90 species of birds, some endangered, that have been identified in the area.

Visitors can expect to see mule deer, ground squirrels, rabbits, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons and other wildlife, including an occasional mountain lion or rattlesnake. The area also has geological significance: Fossilized bones of whales and fish dating to the time when the land was under sea have been found.

Developer agreements like the one that made the park possible have been controversial, sometimes with good reason. The Board of Supervisors seems to make some of them less to protect the public good than to ensure private development rights. But the creation of Aliso and Wood Canyons Park is one example of when such agreements have worked well. It took county officials many years and negotiations with many property owners to put the park together. It was worth the effort.

Preserving the park’s quiet ambience will take vigilance on the part of the county. In the near future, the canyons will be surrounded by development; grading is already visible in some areas. Care must be taken to ensure that proper setbacks, landscaping and berming keep this housing out of view to park visitors as much as possible. There also must be strong protections of the park’s archeological artifacts.

Properly cared for and safeguarded, however, the Aliso and Wood Canyons Park is a welcome addition to the so-called Laguna Green Belt, which will eventually link 18,000 acres of state and county parklands in Orange County.