So Take a Hike, Already : Public Often Overlooks County’s Wilderness Parks

When Deanna Eisenberg moved from British Columbia to a pastel-color tract home here, she figured that her weekend wilderness walks were over.

Instead of having a rich, green forest in her back yard, Eisenberg’s new view included countless rows of houses blanketing the surrounding hillside.

But on a Sunday drive last year, she saw a sign pointing to Aliso/Wood Canyons Regional Park and, to her delight, discovered that the park was actually a 3,400-acre wilderness park.

“I had no idea it was there,” Eisenberg said. “I had felt so claustrophobic and hemmed in by everything. But these canyons are like a little gem, and it takes me just 10 minutes to drive here from home.”

Aliso/Wood Canyons is one of many county wilderness parks. And county parks officials say not enough people take advantage of these areas, most of which are 45 minutes or less from the high-rises of Santa Ana.

About 4 million people visited county parks last year, according to county estimates. But the four largest wilderness parks in the county system had just 270,000 visitors.

“The public has little or no concept of the beauty that is right here in their own back yards,” said Tim Miller, manager of the 20,000-acre county park system.

“I would be excited if the public would use these parks,” added Jack Ruggenbuck, superintendent of the Orange Coast State Parks District. “A lot of visitors say to us that they didn’t realize that all this was right here in Orange County. But it is.

“Hiking these trails gives you a real wilderness experience without getting in your car and driving 300 miles to the Sierra mountains,” he said.

Each park has its individual wonders. Carbon Canyon Regional Park features a grove of 160 young coastal redwoods, ranging from 45 to 75 feet tall. Aliso/Wood Canyons Regional Park has pristine sycamore and oak hiking trails and bizarre rock formations. Cleveland National Forest has more than 50,000 acres of canyons and hills in Orange County. The ridgeline hiking trails of the 7,600-acre Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park near San Juan Capistrano offer stunning canyon vistas and mountain views.

At about 3,000 acres, Crystal Cove State Park offers a look at the county’s coastal scenery. From its bluffs overlooking the Newport/Irvine Coast, the view stretches from the craggy bluffs of Dana Point to the Newport Pier. The park’s interior contains miles of canyon hiking trails and a ridgeline campsite with ocean views.

Most of these parks are in various states of development, with amenities from barbecue pits to ball fields. But the parks are all dominated by large amounts of wilderness areas, untouched except for hiking trails.

The wildlife preserves are “an incredible thing,” said Elisabeth Brown, president of Laguna Greenbelt Inc., an environmental group. “This is a way to get into the backcountry for the people of the coastal area and others who are so hemmed in by houses and telephone poles. Walk for an hour into these preserves, and you feel like you’re a million miles from anywhere.”

Activities on wilderness land are limited to hiking, horseback riding and biking.

All of the wilderness parks owe their sprawling expanses of open space at least in part to the development industry, according to Miller, the park system manager.

But some environmentalists say the county is not getting the best possible deal from developers. They urge local agencies to lobby for even more wilderness land in exchange for building rights.

Pete DeSimone, manager of the 4,000-acre National Audubon Black Starr Ranch, a wilderness preserve in South County, pointed to Anaheim’s recent approval of an 8,000-home project in Gypsum Canyon as an example. In exchange for the approval, the Irvine Co. offered to preserve 1,400 acres in neighboring Weir Canyon.

“These exchanges can work,” DeSimone said. “It is a compromise. But I don’t think there is enough land left in Orange County to mitigate the amount of people being brought in here by development. We’re way past that point now.”

Christine Reed, a spokeswoman for the Orange County Building Industry Assn., said the exchange of open space for development “is a fair trade-off. It’s a way of doing business. And it works here in Orange County.”

About six months ago, Reed took a tour of the county by helicopter and said she was impressed by the mix of construction and open space.

“It has not been thrown together,” she said. “It is generally very well organized.”

But for now, building permits are being granted throughout the county, and the county parks division continues to collect large parcels of open space. County officials anticipate receiving about 12,000 acres in the next 10 years.

The largest of these sites include Limestone Canyon/Whiting Ranch Regional Park, a wilderness area near Trabuco Canyon that will eventually encompass 7,000 acres. Just a few miles farther north, Weir Canyon Regional Park is expected to be about 2,000 acres.

What has county officials really excited is a planned park of 10,000 to 12,000 acres in the San Joaquin Hills. The proposed wilderness preserve would be created by adding the 2,200-acre Laguna Canyon property bought recently by Laguna Beach to land already owned by the county or other public agencies.

The site will be run by the county and overseen by a board of environmentalists and county-appointed officials.

Some of these proposed park sites will begin opening in about a year, said Miller, the park system manager.

“I think the last couple of years, and as far as I can see into the future, are going to be the most exciting time for our wilderness parks,” he said. “We have big, beautiful pieces of land promised to us that the public has never had a chance to see before.”

Wide-Open Spaces

Aliso/Wood Canyons Regional Park: Off Alicia Parkway near Aliso Creek Road. Wood Canyon is the best hike in the 3,400-acre wilderness park, with a wide trail through thick groves of sycamore and oak trees.

Carbon Canyon Regional Park: On Carbon Canyon Road and Valencia Avenue. The 124-acre park has a stand of 160 young coastal redwood trees, the tallest of which is 75 feet.

Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park: Off Ortega Highway about 7.5 miles east of Interstate 5. The 7,600-acre park contains canyon vistas, a grove of rare white alders and one of largest oak trees in the county.

Crystal Cove State Park: Off Coast Highway between MacArthur Boulevard and Emerald Bay. A 3,000-acre park with ocean views and a campsite about 2.5 miles from the entrance.

Featherly Regional Park: North of Gypsum Canyon Road exit off Riverside Freeway. About 586 acres of this 700-acre park wind along the Santa Ana River.

Irvine Regional Park: On Chapman Avenue and Santiago Canyon Road. Opened in 1897, it is the oldest in the county park system. The best walks in this 474-acre park are through heavily wooded areas near the Santiago Creek.

O’Neill Regional Park: Off Live Oak Canyon Road, near El Toro Road. About 1,000 acres of this 2,000-acre park are open, including hiking trails.

Santiago Oaks Regional Park: Windes Drive near Santiago Canyon Road in Orange Acres. A 550-acre park with attractive trails along Santiago Creek.