Hiking in Laguna Canyon

So after almost 6 years (ahem!) of living in Orange County, my husband and I FINALLY went hiking in Laguna Canyon. I still can't believe it took us so many years to get around to checking this activity off my mental list. The one time we did go try and do this hike, the trail was closed from too much rain! Ha - just my luck too!

The park is called the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. We parked in the Willow Canyon Staging Area right on Laguna Canyon Road just below El Toro. It was a beautiful hike, especially right now during the springtime while the grasses are still green. I'm sure it gets pretty dried up in the fall. There isn't much shade at all on these trails so I'd recommend going early in the morning or on a cool day. The trail is also very steep in some places, so no strollers, pregnant women, young children or people not strong enough get in gear and attack steep slopes.

Bring plenty of bottled water too. We thought we were just going for a little hour long hike, but you could go on for hours! We lasted for about 3 hours on my half drunk iced coffee. The views kept getting more and more beautiful that we hated to stop going and turn around. We did finally get to see the ocean as well.


P.S. Don't pick the flowers. Or even a flower! I picked one teensy flower along the trail at the top of the world, with no one around, and stuck it in my hair and the park ranger actually pulled her pick up truck over along the trail to stop and tell me to leave it there so it can reseed more flowers...for goodness sakes! At least I didn't leave my Starbucks cup up there!