Sniffing Out Wildflowers on New South County Trail

New trails are always welcome news, and the newest in Laguna Niguel promises to give access to one of the city’s few remaining undeveloped spaces.

City engineers have completed a two-mile paved path that starts at Chapparosa Park and parallels Salt Creek through a large swath of canyon land officially designated as open space. The trail crosses under Camino del Avion before connecting with the Dana Point Bike Trail.

The path is designed to accommodate joggers, hikers, skaters, bikers and nature enthusiasts. Although it has been in use in recent weeks as the finishing touches were made, the trail gets a formal Earth Day opening Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Volunteer naturalists from the Orange County Natural History Assn.--some of them biologists representing a range of specialties--will be on hand to answer questions and identify some of the plants and other wildlife of the coastal sage scrub ecosystem.

Some of these volunteers have been at work posting numbered signs along the path and putting together a guidebook, which will be updated every three months as the seasons bring new birds and a change in the plant life.

“It’s the first of its kind, a bicycle nature trail,” said James L. Ortiz, an officer of the natural history association and a biologist specializing in spiders. Saturday’s opening comes in the midst of one of the best local wildflower seasons in years.

“There are flowers that have not been out in years. There’s stuff even I can’t identify,” he said. “It’s really, really a good year for this (opening) to take place.”

Parts of the area the trail traverses were once heavily grazed, but “it’s kind of in the process of rebuilding itself now,” Ortiz said. “Every year it’s looking better and better.”

Because the trail is paved, it is accessible to wheelchair users.

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More Earth Day: Elsewhere this weekend, Upper Newport Bay will hold its sixth annual Earth Day observance Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Shellmaker Island (off Backbay Drive in Newport Beach). Events include kayak tours, displays, children’s activities and food booths. (714) 640-6746.

Mountain Man: Nobody knows the Santa Ana Mountains as well as Ken Croker, a trail-building organizer for many years and author of the “Santa Ana Mountains Trail Guide.” Croker will speak April 27 at 7 p.m. at REI, 1411 S. Village Way, Santa Ana. Information: (714) 543-4142.

* What: Opening of two-mile paved trail.

* When: Saturday, April 22, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

* Where: Chapparosa Park, Laguna Niguel.

* Whereabouts: From Interstate 5, take Crown Valley Parkway south and turn left on Street of the Golden Lantern. Turn right on Chapparosa Park Road and follow it to the end.

* Wherewithal: FREE.

* Where to call: (714) 831-6625.