From Beach to Bluff on Salt Creek Trail

Salt Creek Trail offers a tour of the good life, Orange County style. It begins at Salt Creek Beach, a lovely, mile-long sand strand, skirts the Ritz-Carlton Hotel grounds, turns inland and leads past the Monarch Beach Golf Links, then ascends through a long greenbelt park into the heart of Laguna Niguel.

Salt Creek Trail is popular with southern Orange County locals, particularly exercise walkers. The paved path crosses the community of Dana Point, the city of Laguna Niguel and three parks: Salt Creek Beach Park, Salt Creek Regional Park and Chapparosa Community Park.

While the trail is open to cyclists, it’s mostly a travel corridor for those on foot--walkers, joggers and stroller-pushing moms and dads. Beach-bound bicyclists prefer to zoom along the bike path paralleling Niguel Road--a far speedier route than Salt Creek Trail.

Salt Creek Trail goes by two other names: Nature Trail and Laguna Niguel Hike/Bike Trail. City and county park authorities as well as homeowner groups have a say in how the trail is maintained.

While the California coast is blessed with many beach and bluff trails, as well as fine trail networks in the coastal mountains, Salt Creek is only one of a handful of trails along the 1,200-mile-long California coast that actually connects the shore with hills east of Coast Highway.

Southern Orange County’s coastal hills, now almost completely covered by homes, have changed almost unimaginably since the 1840s, when cattle grazed Juan Avila’s sprawling Rancho Niguel. Still, a fragment of the area’s natural heritage remains along Salt Creek.

Undoubtedly the 20-stop nature trail, set up along the upper 2 miles of Salt Creek Trail, was intended to interpret the area’s natural history; however, this effort has been abandoned, and no interpretive brochures are available to the hiker.

My guess is that the nature trail was meant to point out some of the remaining native flora. On drier slopes, look for prickly pear cactus and coast cholla. Shading the creek (but, alas, not the trail) are coast live oak, sycamore and willow. Trail-side vegetation includes lots of sage, buckwheat, mustard and monkey flowers.

The path begins at Salt Creek Beach, a popular surfing spot. Bluff Park, perched above the beach, offers great views of the surfers in action, as well as more distant views of Orange County’s coastline and Catalina Island. During the winter months, the park’s numerous benches and vista points are great places from which to observe migrating California gray whales.

Although the hiker is never far from civilization on Salt Creek Trail, no water is available until trail’s end at Chapparosa Park. With a car shuttle, those looking for an easy jaunt could make this a 3-mile, all-downhill hike from Chapparosa Park to the beach.

Directions to trail head: From the San Diego Freeway (I-5) in Laguna Niguel, exit on Crown Valley Parkway and drive about 2 miles to Chapparosa Park Road. Follow this road through a neighborhood into Chapparosa Park. The signed trail head is at the far western end of the park.

The hike: First, resist the impulse to walk inland on the paved pathway leading from the parking lot through the Coast Highway underpass. Yes, you are going to follow a paved pathway and use a Coast Highway underpass, but not this pathway and this underpass.

Salt Creek Trail requires a leap of faith: You must walk west to go east. So join the surfers and sightseers and walk west down the paved coastal access path toward Salt Creek Beach. Admire the beauty of this beach and the often superb waves as you angle north (up the coast) on the promenade leading through Bluff Park. You’ll pass below the ocean-facing side of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, then curve inland.

Salt Creek Trail enters a tunnel below Coast Highway and emerges on the west side of Salt Creek and the far west side of Monarch Beach Golf Links. You’ll ascend moderately for a mile alongside the golf course. Immediately after passing under Camino del Avion, bear left at an unsigned junction. The path turns briefly west, and you’ll see an unsigned dirt trail descending to, and alongside, Salt Creek.

Salt Creek Trail soon turns north again, and the numbered posts (beginning with 20) belonging to the old nature trail appear. After another mile’s ascent, through what signs proclaim is a “Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Area,” the trail reaches Peppino’s Italian Restaurant and the Clubhouse Plaza Shopping Center, whereupon it crosses beneath Niguel Road via another pedestrian underpass.

The last mile of trail has a bit wilder feel as it penetrates San Juan Canyon. From Salt Creek Regional Park, you’ll pass into the city of Laguna Niguel’s Chapparosa Community Park and reach trail’s end at a small exhibit case that describes local flora.

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Salt Creek Trail

WHERE: Salt Creek Beach Park, Salt Creek Regional Park

DISTANCE: From Salt Creek Park to Chapparosa Community Park is 6 miles round trip with 400-foot elevation gain.

TERRAIN: Beach, suburbanized, semi-natural canyon.

HIGHLIGHTS: Scenic corridor, coastline and Catalina views.

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Tel. (949) 661-7013.