Karin Klein - Explorer’s Guide 50 Hikes in Orange County

The people involved in hiking or caring for naturethe two overlap tremendouslyare a generous crowd in the habit of sharing their great stores of information.

Bob Allen is an extraordinarily knowledgeable biologist and wildflower expert. He identified from photoswith startling speed and wonderful humorevery plant that was beyond my store of information.

Co-naturalist Len Gardner has been my partner and teacher on many hikes and my co-conspirator in researching uses of wild plants; he provided valuable ideas and information on a regular basis throughout the process. Michael Hearst was my first, best, and funniest nature instructor.

The following experts took the extraordinary time to back-read many chapters for accuracy, also providing valuable new information and ideas: Mert Hill on geology; county historian Phil Brigandi; and Len Gardner and Joel Robinson, head of Naturalist for You, for just about everything else.

Debra Clarke, wilderness/trails manager for the Trabuco Ranger District of the Cleveland National Forest, obtained special access permits for me to enter closed areas and graciously loaned me rare books on plants and on Native Americans. Claire Schlotterbeck helped on many fronts, from information to access, on Chino Hills State Park. I also was lucky enough to meet and hike with Mike Boeck and Michael Hazzard. Between the two of them, these men know all the corners of the Santa Ana Mountains. Bob Huttar provided the lore of Silverado and Limestone canyons and John Kaiser told me how to find the Alpine Village. Orange County archivists Jean O. Pasco and Chris Jepsen went out of their way to provide historical photos. Los Angeles Times colleague Louis Sahagun guided me to the sea turtles.

But the biggest thanks go to my husband, Amnon Meyers, for amazing help, and were talking about a lot more than moral support. Amnon hiked most of these trails with me, carrying the heavy backpack and sharing the wonder of nature as well as the anxious hour spent driving 8 miles down a winding dirt mountain road on two tires and two rims. He set up everything computer-driven and fixed all the technological glitches. Everyone should have a hiking computer scientist for a spouse.

Thanks also to: my daughter Aviva for hiking several of these trails with me even after the really scary rattlesnake episode, and getting all her own lunches and dinners during the more intense times on the book; my son, Sam, for taking charge of the technical tasks on photos; and my daughter Talya for long-distance writing support.

The Society of Professional Journalists provided the resources and time necessary for this project by awarding me the 200607 Eugene C. Pulliam Fellowship for Editorial Writers.

Friends Lauren Heitner and Laurel Jacob were amiable and helpful companions on several hikes.

This book never would have come my way had it not been for my friend Kristina Lindgren. Thanks also to my reassuring acquisitions editor Kim Grant and the patient and ever-helpful editors at Countryman Press, Kermit Hummel, Matt Forster, and Lisa Sacks.

Everywhere I went on the trails, I met people who helped, either by fixing my camera on the spot, telling me about their favorite trails, or even changing a tire. Even if I didnt like hiking so much, it would be worth it to go out on the trail just for the people.

There it is on the map, so easy to miss among the vastly bigger counties surrounding it. Orange County is a tiny place geographically, just 789 square miles. Amazing to consider that more than 3 million people fit into that space, largely in suburban tracts, making it Californias second biggest county by population.

All the more surprisingly, laced throughout this crammed county you can find lovely and diverse stretches of linked wilderness, more than 600 miles of trails that invite hikers of almost every description. In fact, Orange Countys expansive hiking scene was ironically created in large part by its equally expansive construction. As mitigation, developers often were required to dedicate swaths of environmentally valuable land as open space. Others did so to leave a legacy. Combined with existing parks, a national forest, and open spaces preserved by the work of dedicated community activists, Orange County encompasses a variety of hiking experiences within easy distances of its suburban sprawl.

Once-degraded wetlands previously covered with oil pumps, their restoration just completed, draw crowds of birds including the endangered least tern. The last major link of the South Coast Wilderness was completed in 2007, providing an easy walk to the countys only natural lakes, one named for a hippopotamus that escaped from an animal park and made its home there for a short time. A climb over a ridgeline with big views brings you to a little gully on the other side; a sycamore there is the infamous hanging tree where two bandits from a famous gang were lynched in the 1850s. In the Santa Ana Mountains you can find mining adits from the 1800s, waterfalls, forests of conifers, and forever views without a house in sight.

To see, touch, and understand the surroundings of Orange County is to forge a palpable link to a rich natural history. You walk on ground that, back in dinosaur days, formed the floor of a shallow sea, and stroll wetlands that were the stomping grounds of Ice Age mammals that left their bones behind tens of thousands of years ago. You scent the pungent white sage that Native Americans burned in ceremonies 1,000 years ago, see the stones they pounded their acorns on, taste the lemonadeberry they made a tart drink from and observe the tiny doveweed they threw into creeks to stun fish for easy catchingan early example of better living through chemistry.

Tread paths through yellow fields of high mustard, an exotic plant strewn some 250 years ago by the padres who, it is apocryphally said, sought to leave a golden trail from mission to mission. With your fingers, trace the ridges in a scallop shell fossil more than 15 million years old. Hold the hard fruit of the stinking gourd that pioneer women used 150 years ago as darning eggs; its pounded roots made a strong soap. Smell the char of ash-strewn acreage left by recent wildfires at the same time that you marvel at showy flowers that blossom only after a catastrophic fire, evidence that this wilderness is no stranger to fire, and actually thrives on a limited amount of it, though in recent decades, too-frequent fires have also been a major cause of habitat destruction. Colorful stories and lore lie all along the trail for those who know their signs; this book is your guide to them.