RECREATION / CAMPING : County’s 3 Overnight Parks : O’Neill, Caspers and Featherly Offer Wildlife, Facilities

As Jaguars, Sables, Mustangs and an occasional old Pinto speed by just minutes away from where he works, Richard Dyer is more concerned with a different type of wildlife.

As supervising ranger at O’Neill Park in Trabuco Canyon, Dyer spends a portion of his time noting the numbers of bobcats, raccoons, coyotes and several species of owls.

About five miles southeast of O’Neill, Chuck Thornburg has the same position at unique Caspers Park, which looks much the way it did 100 years ago when it was a private cattle ranch, and even several centuries ago when the Juaneno Indians called it their home and left behind artifacts that are on display at the park today.

Orange County operates recreation facilities from Brea to Dana Point, from Placentia to El Toro, but only three--O’Neill, Caspers and Featherly parks--have overnight public camping facilities. The three have many similarities, primarily in the way they are operated, but probably even more differences--in size, location and type of terrain.

O’Neill, with 2,000 acres adjacent to Trabuco Canyon Road, has the largest number of campsites, a total of 160. Caspers, a few miles north of San Juan Capistrano on Ortega Highway, is truly a wilderness park, and that’s the way those who operate it want to keep it. With 7,600 acres, it is by far the largest of the three, yet it has only 52 campsites, including 10 designated as overflow sites.

Featherly, the northernmost of the three, lies near the San Bernardino-Orange County line off Santa Ana Canyon Road. It has 129 campsites on 700 acres.

All three parks share the same fee schedule, Dyer explained. It costs $10 per night to park one vehicle at a campsite. As many as two vehicles can share a campsite, but the second vehicle will cost an additional $2, and no more than eight people can share a site. If the owner or driver of a vehicle is 60 or over or is disabled, the costs drops to $5 per night. Dogs or cats add $1 per night to the bill. Domestic animals are allowed at O’Neill and Featherly, but not at Caspers.

Campers are allowed to spend a maximum of 15 days combined in each calendar month in all three parks. That requirement is designed to keep people from living full time in them.

“We like to think that we’re in the recreation business,” Dyer said. “Not the home-care business.”

Still, campers escaping from the gridlocked life of urban Southern California find that they can choose their own degrees of “roughing it.” For some, that means tents and sleeping bags. For others, it may be a motor home with color television, microwave ovens and showers. Those without such facilities in their vehicles will find showers, restrooms, clubhouses and other facilities in all three campgrounds.

“We have everyone staying here, from the near-penniless poor to people of means who are retired and just like to stay in parks,” said Dyer, a 20-year veteran of the Orange County park system who is in his fourth year at O’Neill.

There is no question how Dyer feels about his work. “It’s like being on a vacation and getting paid for it,” he said. “It’s close by, but it’s a different world. You can get away from the pressure and all the rushing around. So many families can come from Garden Grove or San Clemente--wherever--and cook outdoors.

“You don’t have to look at shopping centers and condos all the time.”

Instead, visitors at O’Neill are likely to see mule deer, coyotes, bobcats, gray foxes, raccoons, possums, ground squirrels, rabbits, several species of hawks and owls, turkey buzzards, lizards, gopher snakes and two types of rattlesnakes. During the spring, great blue herons take off and land in the creeks.

While O’Neill has 160 campsites, 60 are closed from November until April because they are not needed. Remaining open are the other 100 sites along with areas designated for such youth groups as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, church groups and Indian Guides. O’Neill has 10 such areas, each accommodating 350 campers. All are accessible to the handicapped, all have barbecues, picnic tables and cement fire rings for cooking. Running water is nearby. Also available are four areas set aside for recreational vehicle groups. Each can accommodate 20 to 30 RVs, Dyer said.

RV groups and youth organizations may pre-register for camping, Dyer said, while people waiting to camp in the regular sites do so on a first-come-first-served basis.

Only 500 of the 2,000 acres at O’Neill are improved. That is, one-fourth of the available land is used for camping facilities, per se. Much of the remainder is given to hiking trails from three to six miles in length, day-picnic sites, hillsides planted with wildflowers and numerous deep arroyo canyons. These are closed to the public because mountain lions live in them. That area is fenced away from the remainder of the park.

The presence of the mountain lions keeps many people away from the park, which Dyer finds regrettable. “Public use of the park has dropped since 1986, when there were two incidents at Caspers Park in which children were bitten,” he said. “We’ve had no incidents at O’Neill--although we have had sightings--but because of the mountain lion alert, people did stay away for a while.” As a result of the incidents at Caspers, people under 18 are still not allowed at that park.

Of course, mountain lions don’t cause as much trouble at Orange County’s parks as people. And Dyer says vandalism and other problems of the 1990s have had little impact on O’Neill.

“There is a ban on alcohol,” he said. “I’d say 99% of our trouble is alcohol-related. People come in here, start drinking, and the fighting and domestic quarrels begin. We don’t want that, and we get rid of them right away.”

Dyer supervises a staff of 17. Two shifts of rangers are on duty between 6:30 a.m. and midnight every day, with a security officer on duty overnight.

Thornburg, the man in charge at Caspers, likes to point out the unique features of his park. One is the emphasis on equestrian use. No horses are available for rent, but campers bring their horses and ride them along backcountry covered by western sycamore, varieties of coastal oak, wildflowers and two creeks. Along the way, they see the remains of several windmills and a corral built when the park was part of the Starr Ranch. The cost for bringing horses in is $2 per animal per night. Thirty corral facilities are available.

“We’ve got a visitor center,” Thornburg said, “where we have a diorama of Indian displays which were found on the park grounds.” These include a carved rock that was called a charm stone, several metates for grinding grain and numerous scraping tools.

Because the area is so unspoiled, it has a few other rules unique to it. No wood fires are allowed, as wood has a tendency to give off sparks. Campers have their choice of using charcoal in the fire rings, or any of the familiar propane or butane stoves.

Caspers also has 30 miles of hiking trails, Thornburg said. From some, at the very top of the park, people can see Dana Point on a clear day..

O’Neill was the first to be opened as a park, in the late 1940s, followed by Featherly in 1971 and Caspers in 1974. In each case, there are no private businesses on site but several just a few miles away. “There’s a country store just outside the park,” Dyer said, “where you can get firewood, propane or basic foods. Two miles away, in Santa Margarita, there are several stores, and, if you don’t mind driving seven miles, there’s the Trabuco Oaks Steakhouse or Senor Lico’s, a Mexican restaurant.”

At Featherly, the smallest of the three parks, there is still a great deal of undeveloped land. Only 110 of the 700 acres are improved, a park ranger said.

“We have a milelong hiking trail and a nature trail,” he said, “and the rest is wilderness. We have trailer club areas, youth group areas and the regular campsites. We’re open 24 hours a day, every day of the year.”