A Trip Over the Santa Anas With Ups, Downs, Zigs and Zags

Driving time: Two hours, counting stops

Distance: About 58 miles from San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore and back over California 74

Level of difficulty: Challenging

Though they’re tougher to find every year, the old-fashioned California countryside, and old-fashioned driving experiences through it, still exist nearby, much as they were decades ago.

One such drive is historic Ortega Highway, or California 74, 29 miles (most of it twisting two-lane) from Interstate 5 in Orange County up the narrowing gorge of San Juan Creek, over the Santa Ana Mountains and down a steep grade to Lake Elsinore in Riverside County.

In centuries past, the route was traversed by Juaneno Indians, Spanish padres and cowpokes, as well as sufferers of rheumatism, melancholia and syphilis who sought relief in the steaming waters and mud of San Juan Hot Springs.

Nowadays, Ortega Highway is a backdoor to the Inland Empire for commuters on weekdays and a motorcycle speedway of sorts on weekends. Those who go slow enjoy a wealth of visual treats: meadows with grazing horses, oak-shaded stream bottoms, rocky outcroppings straight from a cowboy movie, winter views of snowy peaks, wildflower riots in spring.

Despite recent widenings and eliminations of some “dead man’s curves,” it is always a place for caution.

Stuart A. Bloom of Laguna Beach, a psychologist who has driven the Ortega to work in Murrieta for 10 years, calls part of it “Ricochet Alley” because of the many crashes he has seen. Stay sober, he warns, and make sure your car is in good repair.

“And definitely have sunglasses,” Bloom says. “Early in the day, or late afternoon, it can be blinding coming around some of those turns.”

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The Ortega actually begins three blocks west of the San Diego Freeway in San Juan Capistrano, where mission ruins, antique stores, cowboy bars and 200-year-old adobes tempt tourists to linger.

Our route turns east from the freeway, past modern San Juan’s mix of old and new: shopping centers, mobile home parks, luxury gated communities, horse trails, nurseries, fruit stands and the Parra Adobe and Harrison House historical site.

Nearly two miles out, look on the right for the Oaks, the equestrian facility owned by Joan Irvine Smith, whose family once owned Irvine Ranch. A little farther ahead on the left is the headquarters for Rancho Mission Viejo, the still-vast remnant of the rival O’Neill family’s 226,000-acre spread.

At the broad wash at the edge of town, the roadwork on the left is an extension of Antonio Parkway, paving the way for more suburban encroachment in the form of an 8,000-home project on O’Neill land.

But the Ortega soon leaves that behind, rising into higher country where oak, elderberry and sycamore crowd the road and Rancho Mission Viejo signs point to wholesale nurseries and concrete companies.

Just past Tree of Life Nursery, a native plant specialist, is Caspers Wilderness Park, which was closed to youngsters for years after a mountain lion attacked a child. It’s open again to all, but hikers in the area are warned to watch for the big cats, poison oak, rattlesnakes and other hazards.

Farther on, views across the broad canyon are of striated bluffs resembling those in Arizona. Past San Juan Fire Station and the hot springs site, the Ortega begins a steeper climb into the Cleveland National Forest, 13 miles from the start.

To the left, the drop-offs become precipitous. To the right, rock walls crowd the car. A mile past a turnoff to a picnic area is the Riverside County line--and a sign warning of 11 more miles of twists and turns.

Not quite 20 miles out, snacks and information are available at the Ortega Country Cottage. Across the road, where a trail loops down to the creek, signs warn that using the forest requires a Forest Adventure Pass--you must pay a ranger to hike here these days.

By the 2,000-foot level, the views frequently open up again--this time to boulder-studded mountains. Past turnoffs to camps and the McConville Nudist Community is oak-shaded El Cariso Village, with another small store. From there it is a short drive through chaparral to the 2,666-foot summit.

As the road heads down, views are stunning on clear days. Speedboats slash across Lake Elsinore. Sere brown hills ripple across the landscape for miles. And on the horizon, Southern California’s highest peaks are visible simultaneously: 10,064-foot Mt. San Antonio (Old Baldy) atop the San Gabriels, 10,804-foot Mt. San Jacinto above Palm Springs, 11,499-foot Mt. San Gorgonio in the San Bernardinos.

Motoring down, don’t get too distracted by the vistas, the cliffhanging houses and barbecue joints or the hang gliders that frequent these skies. The road here has been much widened recently, but it is still a steep and tricky zigzag.

The Ortega dead-ends near a tile-roofed subdivision and market on the outskirts of the town of Lake Elsinore. Return the way you came, or Interstate 15 is a short drive away.

To fully savor the Ortega drive, stops are in order. Possibilities include:

* Caspers Wilderness Park, 7.5 miles from Interstate 5. Learn about local wildlife at the visitors center and museum, then picnic. Entry fee: $2 per car weekdays, $4 on weekends.

* Ortega Country Cottage, 19.7 miles from I-5. Try macadamia pralines, jumbo Texas chili jellybeans and divinity fudge. Peruse the guidebooks and maps. Ask the owners about the time Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stopped by, or actor Tom Cruise.

* Killen Trail, 23.6 miles from I-5. Turn right onto this paved side road for spectacular vistas of Baldy, San Jacinto and San Gorgonio, and back across the Cleveland National Forest.

FELLOW TRAVELERS

Got a favorite California drive you’d like to suggest to other readers? Send ideas (general route, places of interest along the way, distance and duration of trip) to Highway 1, Business Section, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. Via e-mail: highway1@latimes.com. If your idea is printed, your reward is a Highway 1 commuter mug.

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Times staff writer E. Scott Reckard can be reached at scott.reckard@latimes.com.