Aliso Creek Regional Trail

This trail gets four stars for what it is: a neighborhood regional trail that «connects the dots» between many community parks and trail networks.
I ride it regularly for a quick workout (particularly when other trails are closed due to rain), or for getting from one mountain bike trail hub to another. The trail starts at Aliso Creek /​Wood Canyon (with its extensive mountain bike trail network), goes past Whiting Ranch (with another mountain bike trail network) and ends at Cook’s Corner (just below the trail heads for Santiago Truck Trail and Harding Truck Trail and all the Saddleback Mountain trail networks).
You can ride from the 5 Freeway to Cook’s Corner (7.8 miles one way) with only a single car crossing (stop sign) and only ¼ mile of automobile bike line riding (at the very end).
The trail is multi-​use and can be a little crowded on weekends, particularly with a mix of walkers, families with kids, etc. Be a responsible biker and share the trail. Skateboarding is not allowed, but that doesn’t stop skateboarders from using the trail on occasion — so keep your eyes peeled — a skateboarder took me out one ride about a year ago.
Some sections can be quite pretty, and others are strictly ok, but if you are looking for paved miles that don’t include sharing lanes with cars — this is a good option.

I cant believe this trail gets good reviews. I ride a lot and all over Los Angeles and Orange Counties, The Aliso Creek Trail is honestly the worst trail I have ever been on. (not even close) It can only be from people who only use this trail. To be fair the trail design would be great for running and possible for weekend riders, but if you are a cyclist this trail is not only poor it is unsafe and unmanaged.
The trail lacks any design it seems to be several trails put together to make one. with no signage or markers to mark the way. The path starts out great in the south but then turns into a complete nightmare. with bad unsafe corners (no riding over 20 in many corners), uneven surfaces and weeds growing in path. There is a very unsafe ramp and crossing in one of the parks in Lake Forest and many homeless people on this section too. Lots of street crossings and traffic crossings.
If you are a cyclist just ride the street because the path is completely useless as a bike path. To many blind corners, Stops at streets, sharp turns, unsafe unmaintained surfaces and surface changes.
I would give no stars if I could. Completely unacceptable.

We started at Heroes Park and went over to the Laguna Hills area. The creek was mostly dry but had some marshy areas where we spotted some mallards and egrets. All in all a decent trail close to home. Plan to start from near Cook’s Corner next time and explore the other end of it.

Love this path, yes, yes!
The Aliso Creek Trail is perfect for walking, running, biking — or anything in between.
There are some gentle hills along the trail, but nothing unbearable — just enough to get your heart rate up.
Park of the trail runs through local parks (Sycamore, El Toro), which is nice. The parks offer additional shade AND water fountains (at least at El Toro).
Trail is cement.
You can read more about the creek and the trail here:

Since moving to Aliso Viejo I have starting running on a new portion of Aliso Creek Trail that runs along Laguna Niguel, Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills and it’s about time for an update of my new found portion of this trail.
I now usually start at the Aliso and Wood Canyon Park in Laguna Niguel. There is limited free street parking here, but there is also parking in a dirt lot ($ 3 for the day) and a church that has paved parking (where there are signs that state «no trail parking», but I did park there one weekend since the street parking was taken and I didn’t have any cash on me – I was worried my car was going to get towed, but 1.5 hours later, my car was still safe and sound — I wouldn’t recommend doing this often). If you do pay to park, you money will go towards OC Parks. Free street parking is usually only completely taken or hard to get a spot on the weekend mornings, but when I go during the weekday mornings (usually get there sometime between 9−10am), there is plenty of free parking.
This portion of the Aliso Creek Trail is much more beautiful than the part I’m used to that goes through Lake Forest and Mission Viejo. Lots more plants, trees, bushes… basically anything green… and also lots more wildlife (ie: mainly bunnies and lizards!). When I go running here I tend to forget that I’m less than half a mile from busy Alicia — which you can see if you just slightly turn your head and look past all the vegetation. This portion of the trail goes behind Aliso Niguel High School (where I’ve seen the football team practice as well as the band — ah HS memories!), a couple of Elementary Schools and a couple of parks. If you’re in need of a bathroom, a couple of the parks have a restroom and there are also porta potties at Aliso and Wood Canyon Park.
This portion of the trail is pretty flat. There are a couple of slight inclines, but they only last about 20 feet, which isn’t too bad. Because of this, I can run this portion of the trail pretty fast for me.
As mentioned in my last review of this place, there are plenty of friendly people along the trail. Even if it’s 9am on a Tuesday or 9am on a Saturday, there are still plenty of people out and about on this trail from runners to walkers to bikers. I like the encouragement I get along the trail and it usually helps me to keep going.
If you don’t have a running app or running tracker, here are a couple of mile routes if you desire training for a 5k or 10k. From the Aliso and Wood Canyon Park to the 73 Toll Road underpass is about 1.7 miles, making the route there and back about 3.4 miles (perfect for training for a 5k!). From Aliso and Wood Canyon Park to the park that boarders on the corner of Moulton and Laguna Hills Drive is about a 3.2 mile run one way, making it about a 6.4 mile round trip run (perfect for a 10k training run!). I’m training for a Half Marathon right now, so I tend to do the 5k route and the 10k route for my shorter runs days, but tend to go some more miles along the trail and sidewalks on my longer run day. Once you get to the park at Moulton and Laguna Hills Drive, the trail is hard to find and follow. Instead of confusing myself, I usually just run about a half of a mile or so on the sidewalk along Laguna Hills Drive until I know the trail starts back up along Paseo De Valencia. No biggie.
Overall, still a wonderful trail! Go out and get active people!
Happy running!

I’m sure most locals already know about this… but I thought it was time to add it to Unilocal’s radar and share my love for this path, in case someone new is looking here.
Aliso Creek Trail is an 18-​mile paved (asphalt and some concrete) recreational trail with the trailheads located at Aliso & Wood Canyon Park in Laguna Niguel, and at Santiago and Live Oak Canyon Rds at Whiting Ranch in Trabuco Canyon. Just this past October, it was recognized as a National Recreation Trail, which you can now see by the sign posted on the trail at the rest stop near Marguerite Pkwy. It spans several cities, but I just picked Lake Forest for the address since it’s somewhere in the middle.
I live in LA these days, but I always pack my running gear when I visit my parents in Lake Forest so that I can come here and enjoy a nice morning run. I think of this as the safest and most convenient place for me to run in this area. It’s close to a lot of neighborhoods in Lake Forest, so this stretch of the trail is well-​populated with walkers, runners, baby strollers, dog-​walkers, etc. in addition to the bikes that whiz by all along the route (I’ve yet to see horses on the trail, although they have the first right-​of-​way). It gives me comfort to run in the same place where a families would trust to take their small children for a stroll. Besides which, Lake Forest is consistently among the top 10 safest cities in the nation… at any rate, I think my survival odds are better here than in LA (where a transient in downtown once tried to attack me and chased me into the street).
I usually run between 8 – 12 miles round-​trip on this path. It extends plenty further for a longer run, but I end up turning after leaving my comfort zone since I have a bad tendency to either (a) get confused trying to figure out which way to go once I head south and into Laguna Hills, or (b) let my overactive imagination get the best of me once after passing north of the 241 into Portola Hills and outside of civilization.
A few tips and other notes:
— Though there’s many places you can enter the trail, I usually prefer to start near Heroes Park on Jeronimo (between Cherry Ave and Los Alisos) and follow the trail north from there. The path is all on a gradual incline heading north.
— On first visit, you may want to pay attention to the wooden posts with the triangle-​shaped right-​of-​way signs; there’s usually a small arrow on it pointing the direction of the pathway. Otherwise, you might find yourself accidentally running into dead ends when you follow the path to the street or neighborhoods or don’t cross the bridges over the creek when you should. I know from first-​hand experience that that gets annoying fast. :)
— There’s water and bathrooms and a parking lot at Heroes Park (Jeronimo Rd.), and there’s also water at a small playground next to some neighborhood north of there… all right, I can’t remember where that’s at exactly, but look for the playground.
— The path can get a little flooded at parts during/​after the rain.
— The path becomes wider and more beautiful north of the 241. Enjoy the view and listen for the birds, too.
— It’s almost 12-​miles roundtrip on the trail between the 5 freeway and the 241.
— Passing under the 5 freeway at 7:30 am is desolate and scary. I would never do that again. I like running here a little later in the morning when there’s more light and more people out, but that’s my preference.
— Everyone here is so friendly. I think that I would have needed three hands to count the number of people who said «Good morning» or some variant to me in the 90 minutes I was out there this past Saturday morning. One lady even told me, «You’re amazing!» to which I of course reciprocated… friendly, happy and encouraging people are amazing to me!
— Judging by the words of encouragement and mile markers written on the ground in chalk all along the road, it seems like there’s a Team-​In-​Training group training here for a marathon. I came across a bike race (?) on the trail here just last month, and I think a portion of this trail has been used for a triathlon before too.
— The trail is labeled as «Aliso Creek Bikeway» on Google Maps.
Here’s 5 miles of the trail from my most recent excursion:
Perhaps somebody with a bike can flesh out the details I’m missing here about the rest of the route. I think you guys can cover the long, 18-​mile trail much faster than I can on my two legs. Until then, happy walking, running, cycling, hiking, horseback-​riding, dog-​walking, baby-​strolling, cell-​phone talking, etc. to you all out there on the Trail.