SPECIAL REPORT * Vast but nearby, the Angeles is the most heavily used national forest. In its most accessible sections, rangers cope with crowds of 30 million visitors a year who make it . . . : The Playground in L.A.’s Backyard

The Angeles National Forest is a vast and spectacular wilderness area that is home to black bears, mountain lions and rattlesnakes.

It is also a place with entry points near several freeways and even a highway running through it, making the forest a sort of urban park for many Southern California families.

On holiday weekends like this one, campsites fill quickly and roadsides are jammed with parked cars and pedestrians hauling stereos, ice chests and barbecue grills, outfitted for a weekend with nature, family and about 80,000 other day-trippers.

Hard-core hikers and campers may be appalled by the theme park atmosphere. But for less adventurous types, convenience calls.

“Yosemite might be bigger and better, but this is close to home. It’s in my backyard,” said Pamela Traylor, 38, who brought along a dozen members of her extended family for a weekend camping trip. “I drive through here commuting from Palmdale to Pasadena and thought it would be a good place to camp.”

For Traylor’s mother, Dorothy Hamilton, the tamed outdoors--in the form of a car-filled Monte Cristo campground off Angeles Forest Highway--was exactly what she wanted.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve been camping,” she confessed.

Indeed, the 54-year-old Hamilton, who lives in Gardena, had to be lobbied by her daughter to try camping--and assured that there would be no wild animals.

Hamilton feigned shock when told that bears and mountain lions inhabit the forest. “She lied. They tricked me,” she joked, pointing to her daughter. “This may be my last time camping!”

With about 30 million visitors a year, the Angeles is the most heavily used national forest, according to Julie Molzahn, district recreation officer for the U.S. Forest Service’s Los Angeles River Ranger District.

Forest Service surveys show that visitors to the Angeles Forest come in groups averaging about 10 people, double the national average.

The largest weekend crowds gather in San Gabriel Canyon, north of Azusa on California 39. They are drawn by the San Gabriel River and areas between the streams and road where the Forest Service permits barbecues.

With this winter’s heavy snowfall, the river’s cool, clear waters are running high enough for children to swim, and thousands do. The late rains have also left wildflowers lingering in a blaze of yellow, lavender and white, and an abundance of yucca blossoms shooting skyward like Roman candles in a natural daytime fireworks show.

The river’s banks were packed with picnickers by Saturday afternoon, the rushing waters drowned out by blaring radios.

Those who did not arrive early had trouble finding roadside parking and were left out in the sun as shady spots near the river filled up.

For Zenaida Gaxiola, 26, of Inglewood, Saturday’s forest foray required far more work than she had anticipated. In the morning, her group of seven relatives tried to find a spot at Lake Perris in Riverside County, but found the picnic areas closed.

Reaching the Angeles Forest about 2 p.m., Gaxiola still couldn’t get a picnic spot or campsite out of the sun.

As she complained about the crowding, her 6-year-old son, Junior, bounded up, soaked and beaming from playing in the river.

“I was looking for a snake, but I could only find a frog,” he said. “I love it.”

On Sundays and holidays, the Forest Service sometimes barricades the highway to San Gabriel Canyon when all roadside parking spaces are filled.

Along with the flood of holiday visitors comes more work for those who patrol the area: Forest Service law enforcement officers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. On the Fourth of July, many campers and picnickers bring fireworks, ignoring the numerous signs along the roadways stating that they are illegal. Those caught with fireworks can be fined $50 to $5,000.

Other problems: fights between family members--usually fueled by drinking--and quarrels between different groups when campgrounds and picnic sites become crowded.

In June 1997, the service began a parking permit system in the forest. Called the “Adventure Pass,” the permit costs $5 for a day or $30 for a year per car.

The revenue was intended to make up for Forest Service budget cuts. And it has helped lessen the impact of so many visitors, according to Ranger Larinda Pontes.

Proceeds from the passes have paid for 15 new toilets throughout the forest, more frequent trash pickups, graffiti removal and building and restroom repairs.

In the San Gabriel River portion of the forest, visitors without the Adventure Pass are required on weekends and holidays to buy a Los Angeles County daily roadside parking permit that costs $3.

Forest Service officials do not know whether the permit requirement has reduced the number of visitors to the forest.

Even on the busiest days, the crowds are concentrated near the roadways--their encampments extending about as far as a middle-aged man can carry a cooler of beer.

Those who hike to the interior can enjoy solitude with a little extra effort.

Adriana Lopez, 28, a Lakewood resident who has camped in the forest four years straight, did not roam too far from the drive-in campground she and a group of friends chose for this Fourth of July escape, in part because young children were along. But they still got their dose of wildlife.

“We saw a coyote puppy,” she reported. And however jammed the forest gets, there’s at least one guaranteed break from civilization, she said: “Beepers and cell phones don’t work in here.”