AntSol Travel

When people think about Orange County, they think about going to Disneyland, seeing their hometown team vs. the Anaheim sports teams of Los Angeles Angels baseball & Anaheim Ducks hockey teams, going to a work conference or fan convention at the Anaheim Convention Center or nearby hotels, and maybe hitting the beach? How about mountain biking? Unless they are avid mountain bikers, even in that case, the trails are not too challenging but fun. If I resided outside the area, would I put mountain biking on my itinerary while visiting Orange County? If drove in, then yes if I have room for one. If I flew into the area, no, since it is expensive to check it in and buy a case for my bike, but if I took an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner in with my bike in tow at no extra charge, yeah!

I am Anthony Solhtalab and welcome to AntSol Travel Transit Series, where I showcase places around Southern California with unique ways of getting there via foot, bike, and public transportation!

For my first mountain bike trip, I wanted to go to a park that is a linear easy trail where I can take a transit & bike into the park. Aliso & Wood Canyon Wilderness Park is a perfect location since I can take Metrolink from Anaheim to Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo, bike to & through the park, end in Irvine Spectrum Center to eat & run errands, and then take Metrolink from Irvine back to Anaheim.

On November 6th, I took my bike out to go to Aliso & Wood Canyon Wilderness Park in Laguna Niguel, located 24 miles south of Disneyland if you drive on Interstate 5. However, if you want to do the AntSol Travel Transit-way, I took Metrolink from Anaheim to Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo Metrolink station and biked up the meandering hills of Laguna Niguel, about five miles to the wilderness park. You can check it out on my AntSol Transit train ride from Anaheim to Laguna Niguel video below.

I ran a bit late but arrived on time at the Anaheim train station, or the proper name, Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC). I had trouble finding my bike lock key. I made it to the station three minutes before the train arrived, which was late, thank God! My bike was a gently used IronHorse Outlaw FS, which I bought from one of my coworkers. Besides the front tire bike tube was ripped up, the bike was in good shape.

My Metrolink train, the Orange County 600 terminating in Oceanside, arrived four minutes late at 8:42 am. Those four minutes were my saving grace to make it as I got there at 8:37 am, which was the arrival time. I boarded the bike car, which is the first generation of Bombardier bi-level cars (page 12) that were converted to bike cars on the first level of the car, and has leaning bike racks for commuters to have a last clean mile to work, or for me, to have a clean adventure without any direct emissions.

When the train departed Irvine, we passed by the now dismantled Five Points Amphitheater, closed on October 21st, as the city of Irvine is working on construction of the new development and planning a new concert venue at the Great Park. As I took a picture of it, a passenger asked me about it and we talked on the way from Irvine to Laguna Niguel. It was his first time going from Norwalk to Oceanside since 2019. He said in summary to live life to the fullest and not just work day to day & do nothing, which I am aiming to do with my vlog. I disembarked the train at Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo station and got ready to bike to the park.

Next to the train station is a new apartment building that is built to a typical apartment building style of five over one, according to MT Copeland. It is a fire code class five all-wood residential building over a concrete class one commercial building to easily add residential density to an area. I live in the same type of building and it was rushed being built, with plenty of structural issues such as sewage backup, water leaks, garage door motor breaking, and so many more. Hopefully, this apartment building being constructed, won’t be a huge disappointment for its future residents.

From the train station at Fobes Road, I turned left and I trudged up the steep hill of Crown Valley Parkway, which hills will be my biggest enemy on this bike run as Laguna Niguel is built on the San Joaquin hills. The hills were formed by the San Joaquin Hill fault line that thrust up the hills, with the fault line going right through Irvine Spectrum Center, giving way to the hills & canyons I would bike through on the trip. The hill on Crown Valley Parkway was too much for me to pedal on the bike, so I had to push the bike up. Then it was mostly downhill and meander for a bit before getting to the park. After I biked up & down the hilly street roads with wide bike lanes of Laguna Niguel for five & half miles in 44 minutes, I made it to Aliso & Wood Wilderness Park!

According to the OC Parks, Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park had archeological digs that date back from prehistoric times with marine fossils and diverse geological formations from over the millennia. Over 9,000 years the first indigenous people settled the land, by the Acagchemem & Tongva people. The Acagchemem migrate to the Santa Ana Mountains in the summer and the coast during the winter. Then the Spanish Colonized what is now California with the Mission system in the 1780s to settle the land and try to work with the indigenous people. Thereafter, the Spanish allocated land in the Spanish Land Grants, with what is the park area was in the Rancho Niguel Grant in 1842. In the 1960s the surrounding area became master-planned cities of Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, and Aliso Viejo, by the Mission Viejo Company as everyone wanted a slice of the Orange County life. The land for Aliso & Wood Canyon Wilderness Park was set aside to preserve the land and provide outdoor recreational activities for residents by the OC Parks, such as my favorite park activities, trail running & mountain biking.

I did a trail run last year with my first visit to the Aliso & Wood Canyon, and now I wanted to try mountain biking with now plenty of road cycling experience. However, mountain biking is not for the faint of heart, as there are plenty of terrain changes & situational awareness on the trail, and you need to build up stamina & agility on a road bike before considering mountain biking. Otherwise, you will get too exhausted quickly or get into an accident. I have logged over four hundred miles on my road bike before considering mountain biking, and one of my coworkers offered me his used mountain bike to sell to me since he was not using it. It helped that the majority of my bike miles were logged in Irvine & surrounding cities with wide bike lanes and paved bike trails along the Santa Ana River & San Diego Creek. When I showed my GoPro footage to everyone, my dad was shocked but my mom was amazed, and my coworker was happy that the bike was getting much more use than it otherwise would just be sitting in his garage.

If you drive in to Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park, parking is three dollars for the Orange County Parks to help with some of the operations costs of the park. There is a visitors center, led by park rangers to inform visitors about the park’s history, geology, ecology, activities, and safety while in the wilderness park. The park is still an untamed wilderness with coyotes, poisonous oak & bugs, rattlesnakes, mountain lions, rugged terrain, and more. It is a place where kids should not wander off by themselves. If you go into bushes, make sure to check yourself for ticks. After going to the nice restroom, I got ready to head to bike the trail.

There are two main trails through Aliso & Wood Canyon Wilderness Park. From the visitors center is the Aliso Creek Trail for five miles to Laguna Beach, or after 1.5 miles of the paved portion of the trail, turn right for the Wood Canyon Creek Trail for an additional 3.5 miles. I did the Aliso Creek Trail and then the Wood Canyon Trail for a total of five miles. The trail then terminated at the Canyon View Park.

Whether you are trail running, mountain biking, or on a casual walk with kids & friends, make sure to open your eyes & ears as a courtesy to other trail users as some mountain bikers will be ripping around the corner. Mountain bikers might speed by, and they should yell out their presence coming behind you as some people still bury their faces in their phones. Both are not much of a problem with the wide Aliso Creek Trail, however, the trail can be tight along Wood Canyon trail on the latter half of the trail.

Along the way, there are caves to see, streams to splash though, but varying terrain to get there. are a few caves along the way that I checked out, including the dripping cave which was not dripping since there has been any recent rain, and cave rock which you look into a little cave. The trail has three year-round creeks: the first one was shallow & I did a splashdown, the second was a bit deeper but hikers were taking a snack break so I dismounted my bike so I would not splash them, and the third was a deeper creek which I just went on the footbridge so avoid getting too wet. However, at various points, rainfall swept sand into the canyons, making it a bit hard to bike or run through.

At the end of the trail, I was too exhausted to bike uphill, so I took a break at the trail terminus at Canyon View Park in Aliso Viejo. Since I ran out of GoPro batteries, I kept my GoPro off for the rest of the bike run and marked the end of my main video. From the park, it was a straight uphill push from Canyon Vista to Pacific Park Drive through a residential single-family home neighborhood, where most homes are over a million dollars for a 1,600 sq ft house. Then my efforts paid off as they turned left onto Pacific Park Drive. It was all downhill!

Along Pacific Park Drive, it was all downhill with a dedicated bike lane that was taken away from a car lane, a huge win for bicyclists in Aliso Viejo. Passing over CA State Highway 73 is a tolled highway funded by bonds and later by tolls based on the exit.

Then at the next light, I took a nice picture of the valley below.

After that, it was a straight shot down Pacific Park Drive to Moulton Parkway, maxing out my speed at 25 mph per my Apple Watch tracker. At that point, it would still be five miles. I tried to go a few blocks, however, my legs were so exhausted, that it felt like noodles. Thankfully, I reached the next bus stop in Laguna Woods at Moulton-Via Campo Verde, which was perfect for me to take the OC Bus 90, which stopped by the Irvine Spectrum Center. Since I needed to get lunch and get stuff from Target & the Apple Store, I took the bus to the Spectrum Center.

The OC Bus 90 arrived at 12:26 pm, I flipped down the bike rack & loaded my bike on the bike rack, scanned my prepaid OC Bus fare for $2.00 on the OC Bus app, and took the bus four miles up Moulton Parkway to the Irvine Spectrum neighborhood at Irvine Center-Pacifica, about twenty minutes later. Then I biked a block to the Irvine Spectrum Center.

The Irvine Spectrum Center opened in 1995, is a shopping center with shops, restaurants, and entertainment in one outdoor spot. It is the crown jewel of the Irvine Company Spectrum Center neighborhood where residents can live in the apartments, walk to the offices for work, then walk to the shopping center after work to eat out & get shopping done, and then walk back to their apartment. You can also get groceries at Target & Bristol Market, get a new dress shirt at Nordstrom’s, get the latest Apple device at the Apple Store, figure out which pasta entree to get at Cheesecake Factory, and play the arcade games & watch the big game at Dave & Buster’s. They also have the relocated Sprinkles Cupcakes location that was relocated from Downtown Disney, and the first Shake Shack in Orange County. However, the shopping center is proven to be a popular destination as the parking lots are always packed. I just wish there were more well-connected transit options there. At least there are several bike racks around the shopping center and the nearby bus stop.

For lunch, I went to the newest quick-service restaurant at the Spectrum Center, Roll-em-up Taquitos, a chain of taquito restaurants. I bought a new keyboard folio for my iPad at the Apple Store, bought a couple of things at Target, got an iced coffee at the Nordstrom Ebar coffee shop, and then sat at a table & started working on this blog.

Before getting to a table, I saw that the Spectrum Center already put up their Christmas tree & was working on the outdoor ice rink a couple of days before opening at the time. It was November 6th, and I am sure they get too many people complaining about the rink & tree being up right after Halloween. To help guests understand the tree & ice rink process, the Irvine Company put up signage about the timeline of five days to set up the tree & 15 days for an outdoor ice rink in the SoCal heat. At 4 pm, I packed up and unlocked my bike to head to the Irvine train station to catch the Metrolink OC 609 back to Anaheim.

From the Irvine Spectrum Center parking lot, I wound through the lots to Spectrum Center Drive, then left on Enterprise Road, and right on Alton Parkway. I continued on Alton Parkway a bit too far as I missed the left turn to Ada Road, and then I turned back around and made it to the Irvine train station.

Irvine Transportation Center, or simply Irvine train station is a stop for both Metrolink Orange County & Inland Empire lines and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner. It was opened in 1990 for both train’s predecessors, the Orange County Commuter & Amtrak San Diegan. Since it is an Amtrak stop, there is a staffed waiting room that is only open for four days a week as of November 2023. There are also ticketing kiosks for both Metrolink & Amtrak Pacific Surfliner. There are six bus bays for OC Bus & iShuttles to take office workers to their office complexes around Irvine.

The Irvine train platform has two separate platforms, platform one for southbound, and platform two for northbound, and are connected by an elevated walkway. You need to take the stairs or elevator up to get to the walkway, which the elevator has seen better days, and even occasionally breaks down. If the elevator breaks down, all trains have to stop at platform one. I am surprised at this point that there isn’t an underground ramp as most stations have cross track or underground tunnels to get to platform two due to the elevator mechanical issues.

I arrived on platform two at 4:05 pm and waited for the Metrolink OC 609 to get back to Anaheim with my bike. I also got some cool photos of my bike with the sunset to pass the time. At 4:11 pm the Surfliner 580 arrived on time to San Diego and captured it with the camera staring at the sunset to capture the train arriving. Then my northbound OC 609 arrived on time, videoing it as well.

On board the train, the bike car was packed with Irvine and soon Tustin bike commuters. On some of the Metrolink Bombardier BiLevel generation 2 cars that are regular cars, this spot is a bike spot with clips to secure the front wheel. However, this is a Generation 1 converted bike car, so there is a flip-down seat. Since no one is using it, I parked my bike there and stood by it since there are people who need to sit more than I do.

We arrived in Anaheim on time at 4:39 pm and deboarded the train. It was November 6th, the day after the end of Daylight Savings Time and I captured the train departing with a beautiful sunset. I was still not used to the sunset at 5 p.m., but it was perfect timing to capture the Metrolink departing into the sunset.

Overall, this trip was an amazing but exhausting journey as I kept over-estimating how much I could bike, which I did over 15 miles from Laguna Niguel Metrolink station to Laguna Woods via Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park with plenty of hills, which is fun to bike through & not too hard. I just ran out of energy when I got to Laguna Woods and took the OC Bus to the Irvine Spectrum Center to rest and run errands. This is why I parallel my bike route with the bus & train route to help me out in the last unattainable miles.