Saturday, March 17, 2007
New nature center: Blazing new trails
The opening of the Nix Nature Center includes access to miles of new trails.
By PAT BRENNAN
The Orange County Register
It's almost as if a brand-new wilderness has been plunked down in the middle of Orange County.
Today the freshly built, environmentally designed Nix Nature Center in Laguna Canyon opens to the public, offering displays on the canyon's history, American Indian influence, fossils and landscape.
But the center is also a crossroads for three new wilderness trails never before open to the public. One winds down through an underpass beneath the recently realigned Laguna Canyon Road to reach Orange County's only natural lakes; two others climb scrub-covered hills to connect to other trails in the southern part of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.
"This is more than just the center opening," said Mary Fegraus, director of the Laguna Canyon Foundation and a prime mover behind the creation of the center. "This is really opening up the whole 6,600 acres of Laguna Coast for public use."
The southern portion of the park, separated from the north by the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road, has been open since 1993. Until now, however, the northern part was mostly off-limits.
So hikers and bikers will have their chance at last to explore the scrub-brush hills between the toll road and the San Diego (I-405) freeway.
Fegraus said the place can accommodate any level of interest. Visitors can view displays inside the center, among them a mural of native landscape, a gravel tank filled with replicas of fossils for kids to find and plein-air paintings of Laguna Canyon; walk a short, level trail into the nearby brush and back; or launch into a longer trip through side canyons.
But Fegraus offered one piece of helpful advice: The center's parking lot, purposely kept small, accommodates only 45 cars. So visitors need not rush in on opening day, when the lot might become too crowded. The place will be open seven days a week.
Other parking areas also allow access to the northern part of the park, including one leading into the James Dilley portion on the east side of Laguna Canyon Road.
Barbara's Lake, a natural collection point for water from nearby canyons, is home to a variety of waterfowl and surrounded by reeds.
The trail winds partly around the lake, named after Barbara Stuart, who helped found the preservation group Laguna Greenbelt Inc. in the 1960s.
And as for the choice of date – well, it's mostly a coincidence.
"This is technically a green thing to do on St. Patrick's Day," Laguna Canyon Foundation spokeswoman Ellen Kempler said. "It could augment your green beer and bagpipes."
