Dripping Cave, Mouthwatering Menu Go With Their Own Flow

South County homogenous? No way. Off Alicia Parkway alone, you can enjoy a hike to Dripping Cave and a mouthwatering repast at an authentic New York deli.

10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park features scenic canyons, paleontological sites, park woodlands, fresh water marshes and many interesting rock formations. The hike to one of those formations, Dripping Cave, is five miles round-trip.

Start along Aliso Trail at Gate 1 in a parking lot opposite a church. ( Don’t take the equestrian trail on the right of Awma Road; do bring plenty of water.) Stenciled more than once along the private asphalt road that parallels the trail is “STAY OFF PAVEMENT PARK USERS.”

White herons stood lazily on the banks of Aliso Creek; a bevy of beehives are clustered on a hillside beyond. At Gate 2, Porta-Johns with prominent happy faces on the doors may spell relief, but they also signal your turn north onto Wood Canyon Trail and into the park’s Wildlife Sanctuary Area. Just inside the gate, there’s a nature center and ranger office, open some weekend mornings.

Veer left on a trail just past a “Reforestation Project in Progress” sign to Cave Rock (not to be confused with Dripping Cave), where prickly pear cactus nominally guard the mouths of several modest caves. The cactus flowers appear in early spring and vary from yellow to pink; the fruit, called tunas, are purple. The top of the formation seemed ideal for tanning.

Back on the trail, a couple of well-indicated jags left (about three-fourths of a mile from Gate 2) bring you to a creek crossing, a shaded area with hanging vines (probably poison oak), and finally Dripping Cave.

The cool cave is a perfect place to eat a snack and watch the play of reflections of the creek on the rock wall opposite. Strange succulents grow right out of those walls.

Dripping Cave is about 40 feet across, 20 feet deep and 12 feet high.

I had to be dripped upon to notice that it does indeed drip off the lip overhanging the cave. Ferns and moss grow on the face above--one visitor was collecting fronds but scurried off when asked about it. There are two main areas along the lip where water drips. Oops--make that three.

A posted sign says that Dripping Cave is also known as Robbers Cave and that according to legend, thieves used it as a hide-out. “The holes . . . in the cave walls were bored out and fitted with pegs on which to hang supplies,” it said. Looking at the ceiling upside down, it resembled one of Utah’s canyon scenes.

The hike to Dripping Cave is an easy grade throughout, but not without its perils. On the return trip I was bedeviled by a burly bumblebee. (It was only coincidental that the beekeepers were tending the honeybee hives across the way.)

The park is closed for three days after any rain and always off limits to dogs. Discount any information about petroglyphs on park brochures: “I would question the proofreader on that map,” said Park Ranger Tom Maloney, who also noted that the cave drips only in winter. (You can help repair park trails this Sunday; meet at Gate 1 at 8:30 a.m. and bring gloves. Contact Maloney at (714) 831-2791 for more information.)

12:30 to 1:30 p.m.: Allow about a quarter-hour to get through P.J. Bernstein’s six-page menu. The restaurant’s second location opened Jan. 28; the Broadway posters on the walls reflect the first location on 3rd Avenue in New York City.

I passed on appetizers ranging from kasha varnishkes ($3.95) to smoked lake sturgeon ($13.95); soups including MishMosh (chicken noodle soup with matzo ball and kreplach, $4.95) and borscht (served hot with meat and dark bread, $4.25); a chopped chicken liver salad platter ($6.95); smoked chub ($8.95) or sable ($9.95) on a bagel; and beef flanken and Romanian skirt steak entrees ($9.95 each). There’s also a complete breakfast menu, dozens of pizzas, $8.50 to $15, and Coney Island burgers and hot dogs, $4.95 to $7.75.

I still had to choose from 36 kinds of sandwich ($4.25 to $8.95) and almost as many “twin tower” ($8.50) and triple-decker ($7.95 to $12.95) sandwiches. I asked if the twin towers were double deckers or two half sandwiches with different meats, but it didn’t matter: You can get any sandwich you want, hot or cold, in any combination you can think of.

I ordered a half sandwich each of hot corned beef and tongue, and both halves came piled about four inches high on rye. It was about as good as it gets this side of the Carnegie Deli.

The dessert menu includes traditional New York cheesecake ($3.95). But I hadn’t even thought of a baked apple ($1.95) since I had them as a little boy. As fabulous as my mother’s were, this one was even better. Sorry, Mama.

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3-HOUR TOUR

1. Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park

Corner of Alicia Parkway and Awma Road

Laguna Niguel

(714) 831-2791

Open daily, 7 a.m. to sunset.

2. P.J. Bernstein’s

25211 Paseo de Alicia

Laguna Hills

Open daily, 6 a.m. to midnight.

PARKING

Parking: Free parking in lots at both locations; the lot for the park is on Awma Road.