O Neill Regional Park

Address: 30892 Trabuco Canyon Road, Trabuco Canyon Phone number: (714) 858-9365 Features: The park is available for day use and overnight camping. For horse enthusiasts, there is an arena, six miles of riding trails and an equestrian campground. Picnic areas include tables, barbecues, a large turf area, softball diamond, horseshoe pits and playgound equipment. Bicycles can be rented at park concession stand, which also offers food and camping supplies.

Sheriff's deputies on Tuesday said they confiscated about 3,500 mature marijuana plants worth roughly $2.5 million from a well-irrigated plot in O'Neill Regional Park. The plants were spotted from a sheriff's helicopter on patrol about 3 p.m. near Sunrise street in Mission Viejo, said Lt. Hans Strand of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. He said authorities did not know whether the find was related to the 3,800 unattended marijuana plants found this month in Silverado Canyon.

Five elderly hikers from Laguna Hills strode briskly along a hiking trail in O'Neill Regional Park on Friday morning. For two of them, Ann Gahimer and Victor J. Van Lint, it was a kind of celebration of the park's reopening--this time with new rules to protect the public from mountain lions. The two had hiked at Caspers Wilderness Park on the day that it, too, reopened. O'Neill was closed Dec. 26 after several cougars were sighted.

Until the young woman from Massachusetts was brutally assaulted, this had been her most recent home: 3,300 acres of oak and pine trees, mule deer and rattlesnakes, minutes from suburban Rancho Santa Margarita in south Orange County, where the average house is worth $600,000. O'Neill Regional Park's 86 camping spaces provide a temporary home for drifters and vacationers -- people from a few miles away or the other side of the continent.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has finished removing old artillery rounds from a section of O'Neill Regional Park in southern Orange County, and within two months will decide when to begin clearing the rest of the park. During a two-week project that ended last week, technicians found 12 ordnance-related items along a 22-foot-wide corridor being planned as a bike path. None of the munitions discovered in the search area of 1 2/3 acres was live.

Until the young woman from Massachusetts was brutally assaulted, this had been her most recent home: 3,300 acres of oak and pine trees, mule deer and rattlesnakes, minutes from suburban Rancho Santa Margarita in south Orange County, where the average house is worth $600,000. O'Neill Regional Park's 86 camping spaces provide a temporary home for drifters and vacationers -- people from a few miles away or the other side of the continent.

Hikes through O'Neill Regional Park are scheduled from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. The hikes will leave from the O'Neill Nature Center. Participants will be taught to identify tracks and other clues left behind by park animals. O'Neill Regional Park is at 30892 Trabuco Canyon Road. The hike is free and parking is $4. Information (949) 858-9365.

Earth Day--Celebrate the planet at O'Neill Regional Park from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Events will include natural history displays, environmental exhibits and guided nature tours. Children may also enjoy a petting zoo, face painting and storytellers. Live musical entertainment will also be featured. O'Neill Regional Park is at Trabuco Canyon and Oak Canyon roads in Rancho Santa Margarita. The park is surrounded by oaks, and miles of hiking trails crisscross the canyon.

Sheriff's deputies on Tuesday said they confiscated about 3,500 mature marijuana plants worth roughly $2.5 million from a well-irrigated plot in O'Neill Regional Park. The plants were spotted from a sheriff's helicopter on patrol about 3 p.m. near Sunrise street in Mission Viejo, said Lt. Hans Strand of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. He said authorities did not know whether the find was related to the 3,800 unattended marijuana plants found this month in Silverado Canyon.

The Boy Scouts of America is talking with the county about building a swimming pool and complex at O'Neill Regional Park as part of a larger partnership with the county's Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department. The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a cooperative agreement with the Boy Scouts under which the organization will encourage troops to participate in "Adopt a Park" programs and volunteer at local facilities.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has finished removing old artillery rounds from a section of O'Neill Regional Park in southern Orange County, and within two months will decide when to begin clearing the rest of the park. During a two-week project that ended last week, technicians found 12 ordnance-related items along a 22-foot-wide corridor being planned as a bike path. None of the munitions discovered in the search area of 1 2/3 acres was live.

Three teenage boys who left Irvine's Northwood High campus during school hours Monday suffered major injuries when their car missed a curve and plowed into a tree on Live Oak Canyon Road, the edge of O'Neill Regional Park, authorities said. "We don't know where they were headed," Officer Katrina Lundgren, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol, said of the 10:30 a.m. accident near Rancho Santa Margarita.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun scouring a section of O'Neill Regional Park in southern Orange County for half-century-old bombs, finding four expended bombs and an inert practice rocket, authorities said Wednesday. Technicians are focusing their search on a 22-foot-wide corridor planned as a bike trail where 11 small bombs were discovered last fall by workers laying asphalt. The sweep for unexploded ordnance at the former U.S.

A Lake Forest woman missing for four days after she went for a walk was discovered dead Friday afternoon, officials said. The body of Susan Hobbs, 51, was found by search teams off the Vista Trail at O'Neill Regional Park in Rancho Santa Margarita, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino. She was found clothed, lying face-down under heavy bush a day after her car had been located by rangers at the park, authorities said.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it will begin its search in March for old military explosives along a proposed bike path in Rancho Santa Margarita's O'Neill Regional Park. The sweep for unexploded ordnance at the former bombing range had been scheduled for 2023 but was quickly advanced with the discovery two months ago of 11 small bombs under about a foot of soil by workers preparing to lay asphalt for a bike path in the park.

The Army Corps of Engineers will begin searching Rancho Santa Margarita's O'Neill Regional Park for remaining military explosives within 90 days, Rep. Gary Miller (R-Diamond Bar) announced Thursday. The sweep for unexploded ordnance at the one-time bombing range had been scheduled for 2023 but was quickly advanced with the discovery last week of 11 bombs uncovered by workers building an asphalt bike path through the park.

A Lake Forest woman missing for four days after she went for a walk was discovered dead Friday afternoon, officials said. The body of Susan Hobbs, 51, was found by search teams off the Vista Trail at O'Neill Regional Park in Rancho Santa Margarita, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino. She was found clothed, lying face-down under heavy bush a day after her car had been located by rangers at the park, authorities said.

Jim Meyer supports beach cleanups. He just wants people to know where the trash that ends up at the beach comes from. With that in mind, Meyer's nonprofit group--Trails4All--is sponsoring the first (Non)-Coastal Cleanup Day on Sept. 20. Volunteers will gather at five locations in Orange County to pick up rubbish along trails and in creeks. Workers can sign up in advance or at 7:30 a.m. at the site. "Too few people realize where the stuff they throw out their car window goes," Meyer said.

Hikers and mountain bikers entering O'Neill Regional Park in Rancho Santa Margarita are warned of potential encounters with mountain lions, rattlesnakes and Africanized bees. But those dangers may pale next to the presence of small, unexploded, half-century-old Navy bombs. Over a 28-hour period beginning Wednesday morning, workers building an asphalt bike path through the park discovered 11 military bombs while grading about a foot deep near a path used by mountain bikers.