Barbara's Lake-Laguna Coast Wilderness Park EarthCache
Barbara's Lake-Laguna Coast Wilderness Park
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A county wilderness park sticker will cover parking fee. Daily Hours:
Parking Lot Hours - 8 AM to 4 PM
Nix Nature Center and restroom hours - 9am to 4pm
Hiking or Biking In - 7 AM to Sunset
Parking Fee: $3.00 EarthCache can be done in less than an hour but you'll likely want to stay to explore more trails.
Arrive early in the summer time the afternoon heat can be intense. Dirt trails become dusty in high winds.
Barbara's Lake is a 12-acre spring-fed lake in the James Dilley Greenbelt Preserve. Some watershed does feed into the lake, unfortunately. While we were visiting the Nature Center, Ranger Laura told us that it is the only one of the lakes to continuously have water in it. The lake is rimmed with willows, cattails, and bulrush, offering habitat for coots, mallards, and grebes.
To varying degrees many, if not most lakes receive some water from ground water sources or are "spring fed." When swimming (not allowed in Barbara’s Lake), one might notice colder, localized areas or areas of the lake might remain open along the shoreline during winter. Both are likely due to ground water flowing into the lake. Lakes also lose water to ground water sources. Most lakes have both; some ground water flows into the lake and some lake water flows into the ground water system or aquifer. Variations in precipitation patterns can cause the amount in or out to change significantly.
A watershed, or drainage basin, is all of the land and water areas that drain toward a particular river or lake. Thus, a watershed is defined in terms of the selected lake (or river). There can be sub-watersheds within watersheds. For example, a tributary to a lake has its own watershed, which is part of the larger total drainage area to the lake.
A lake is a reflection of its watershed. More specifically, a lake reflects the watershed's size, topography, geology, land use, soil fertility and erodibility, and vegetation. The impact of the watershed is evident in the relation of nutrient loading to the watershed: lake surface area ratio. Typically, water quality decreases with an increasing ratio of watershed area to lake area. This is obvious when one considers that as the watershed to lake area increases there are additional sources (and volumes) of runoff to the lake.
West of Barbara’s Lake, across Laguna Canyon Road, is Bubble’s Pond. The pond was named for Lion County Safari’s escaped hippopotamus, which took up a temporary residence there. The trail winds through canyons and over hills en route to the south and east shores of Barbara’s Lake. Bubble’s pond is not accessible by trail.
Laguna Coast Wilderness Park lies within some of the last remaining coastal canyons in Southern California. The park ecosystem is primarily Coastal Sage Scrub, with Maritime Chaparral, Oak Woodlands, and Riparian habitats. The park is also enrolled in the Natural Community Conservation Planning program designed to protect various endangered species, such as the California Gnatcatcher, Cactus Wren, Orange-Throated Whiptail, by preserving large tracts of the rapidly diminishing coastal sage ecosystem.
Laguna Coast Wilderness Park's 6,500 acres (property is owned by The City of Laguna Beach, The County of Orange, and the California Department of Fish & Game) are part of the South Coast Wilderness area, comprised of Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park, Crystal Cove State Park, The City of Irvine Open Space and Irvine Ranch Land Reserve, and Laguna Coast (about 18,000 acres).
The Nix Nature Center is the new headquarters for the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. The center is the gateway for recreational users to explore the vast network of trails throughout the 6,600-acre park. The nature center features interactive displays, interpretive panels, fossil-embedded rockwork, audio recordings, projected images, art and artifacts. The nature center's picture windows frame four main views into the surrounding parklands. Visitors can hike up Little Sycamore Canyon and enjoy the view or take the trail under Laguna Canyon road to Barbara's lake.
The Nix Nature Center is located at 18751 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park's Little Sycamore Canyon staging area, 3.5 miles south of the I-405 and Route 133 interchange. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., including holidays, with free admission. The parking lot is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the fee is $3. Laguna Woods Village residents Jim and Rosemary Nix provided the initial $500,000 gift for the nature center to the Laguna Canyon Foundation in 1999. A 173-acre parcel of land in the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park is located in Laguna Canyon, just north of the Highway 73 toll road, the area forms the north boundary of the 38,000-acre South Coast Wilderness.
Information was found at the following links:
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If you like, take a picture of yourselves by the informational and artistic sign. The ranger in the nature center seemed quite proud of the artistic and informative placards placed throughout the park. The sign will provide you with the information you need to log the find.
LOGGING REQUIREMENT: Email me the answers to the following:
What is so unique about Barbara's Lake?
When viewing the lake, what do the ripples on the water tell you about the Lake?
How did the Lake get its name?
What is the name of the artist who provided the artwork on the sign?
Please do not post the answers to your log after they are checked or the log will need to be deleted. Thank you.
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