Crystal Cove State Park

A new $15-million coastal campground will open Friday at Crystal Cove State Park in Orange County , but don't get your hopes up for a stay over the Fourth of July. Sites quickly sold out for the inaugural weekend of the year-round campground. Consolation prize: You can tour the site for free Thursday. The Moro Campground, while not directly on the beach, offers 60 hilltop campsites facing the ocean. Some, with electrical hookups, go for $65 a night; others, for tents and soft-sided trailers, are $50 a night.

A new $15-million coastal campground will open Friday at Crystal Cove State Park in Orange County , but don't get your hopes up for a stay over the Fourth of July. Sites quickly sold out for the inaugural weekend of the year-round campground. Consolation prize: You can tour the site for free Thursday. The Moro Campground, while not directly on the beach, offers 60 hilltop campsites facing the ocean. Some, with electrical hookups, go for $65 a night; others, for tents and soft-sided trailers, are $50 a night.

Friends of the Irvine Coast will sponsor a discussion Tuesday on the future of Crystal Cove State Park. Mike Tope, superintendent of the state Department of Parks and Recreation's Orange Coast district, will speak. Topics include the fate of the historic district. The event will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Laguna Beach Women's Club, 286 St. Ann's Drive.

Crystal Cove State Park's 2,400 acres of hilly chaparral north of Laguna Beach have been closed since late December, when intense storms flooded canyons and triggered landslides that took sharp bites out of the trails leading to panoramic lookouts and primitive campgrounds. But the "No Entry" signs and yellow caution tape blocking trail heads have not stopped hordes of trespassers from roaming the park's 17 miles of backcountry trails on foot and on mountain bikes, making any attempt to respond to emergencies treacherous for park rangers.

An Irvine Co. contractor paid a $22,030 fine to the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board for a chlorine release last year that violated the developer's discharge permit and reached the pristine Crystal Cove State Park, state officials said. In November, a worker from the Griffith Co. was sterilizing pipelines at a residential construction site above Crystal Cove and released 3,500 gallons of chlorinated water into Los Trancos Creek, which drains onto the state beach. The Irvine Co.

Environmental officials were investigating Tuesday whether an Irvine Co. contractor poured more chlorine than is allowed into a creek that flows through Crystal Cove State Park, causing no environmental damage but possibly violating a state permit. Reports from environmental activists of a chlorine smell near Los Trancos Creek led to an investigation by wildlife and water officials.

Researchers in Orange County and New Mexico said Thursday they have identified a new and potentially deadly strain of the hantavirus in harvest mice trapped in Crystal Cove State Park. The hantavirus previously found in deer mice killed 42 people in 18 states, mostly in the Four Corners area of the Southwest. Among the fatalities were two California cases, but there were none reported in Orange County.

The state's restoration of 1920s-era cottages at Crystal Cove State Park has become a "money pit," according to an Orange County state senator who wants to turn the ambitious repair project over to a nonprofit organization that would rent the bungalows to beachgoers. Sen.

Thirteen restored cottages overlooking the ocean at Crystal Cove State Park will be ready for overnight accommodations in June. But in a flurry of first-day ticket sales Wednesday, they were booked through October. The race for reservations at the seaside park just north of Laguna Beach began at 8 a.m., online and by telephone. By 8:46 a.m., there were 16,000 people competing for an overnight stay.

Crystal Cove State Park is the place for escape when two-legged and four-wheeled congestion has you feeling stifled in suburbia. From one of its panoramic bluffs, it's easy to imagine Joan Irvine Smith, the 67-year-old art patron and philanthropist, as a child riding her horse with her grandfather James Irvine II across the lush back country of a young Orange County.

Authorities are investigating reports that eight to 10 people came ashore at Crystal Cove State Park in a small boat, then shed their life jackets and some clothes before scattering. Border patrol officials said the group was aboard a panga boat, a type of open-hulled Mexican fishing boat frequently used in coastal smuggling. They arrived at the beach south of Newport Beach on Tuesday at about 7 a.m. A visitor at Moro Beach, one of the beaches at Crystal Cove, called police to report the incident.

THERE are two sides to Crystal Cove State Park, one of the most appreciated (and, it turns out, least appreciated) plots of mansion-free terrain left on Orange County's so-called California Riviera. Heading south on Pacific Coast Highway between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach, look to your right, and there's the side you probably already know about. Side A is a 3.

THE hottest tickets on sale the last week of April were not for Bruce Springsteen at the Greek or Madonna's extra show at the Forum. They were for the beach cottages at Orange County's Crystal Cove State Park. Up and online at the very hour reservations opened, I clicked and clicked until I got a cabin. Well, a room. With bunk beds. Facing Pacific Coast Highway, not the ocean. Still, I felt lucky.

Instead of a ribbon-cutting, they raised a martini flag. Instead of leaving mints on guestroom pillows, they sprinkled the vacation cottages with fake lobsters, diving helmets and seashell artwork. On Monday, state park officials unveiled what might be their most unusual seaside attraction -- Crystal Cove State Park Historic District, a once-ragtag enclave of Depression-era beachfront cottages refurbished into cozy lodgings.

Thirteen restored cottages overlooking the ocean at Crystal Cove State Park will be ready for overnight accommodations in June. But in a flurry of first-day ticket sales Wednesday, they were booked through October. The race for reservations at the seaside park just north of Laguna Beach began at 8 a.m., online and by telephone. By 8:46 a.m., there were 16,000 people competing for an overnight stay.

Overnight lodging at 13 restored cottages at Crystal Cove State Park will begin June 26, the state parks department announced Thursday. An average overnight stay will be $165, depending on the cottage and number of people, said Rich Rozzelle, Orange County district superintendent. The state anticipates high demand for the coveted cottages, which have been restored to offer visitors a California beach experience from the 1930s. Reservations can be made starting April 27 at 8 a.m.

On the eve of the contract signing for an upscale private resort on public parkland at Crystal Cove State Park, some in the Legislature are urging caution and public scrutiny of the plans. This week, state parks officials plan to sign a 55-year contract with a development group to create a resort on park land with rates of $100 to $400 a night. But some are wondering if a resort even belongs inside the park.

With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of Orange County beaches fared well in Heal the Bay's 10th annual Beach Report Card, released Wednesday. Water quality at most local stretches of shoreline received high marks, but the county's ratings were marred by a high number of sewage spills, three of the region's worst beaches and a handful of chronic problem spots, including the part of Huntington State Beach that was closed for two months last summer.

On a postcard-perfect bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a state park ranger lives in a state-owned cottage overlooking Orange County's Crystal Cove State Park, a 3.5-mile stretch of coastal parkland between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach. His rent: $148 a month. The cottage is one of 1,181 houses, cabins and dorms across the state provided to employees at 13 state agencies in 2003, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $8.3 million, according to a report from state Auditor Elaine M. Howle.

When the last residents left the seaside El Morro trailer park this week, state officials returned their attention to their ongoing work just up the coast -- renovating the historic beach cottages at Crystal Cove State Park. The state park, which includes the old trailer park and the cove where the homes stand, is undergoing a $14-million revamp. State officials expect to have 22 of the 46 cottages open to guests by this summer.