Red Rock Canyon is located in Southern California, just south of Irvine. The trail to Red Rock Canyon is about 1.6 miles one way and the round trip hike can be completed within 2 hours. The first part of the trail shares the same starting point that connects to many other trails, thus there is usually a lot of people on the trail.
We got to the trail head at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park at around 7:30 AM and the parking lot at the park was already full! Thus we had to park the car at the plaza across the street. If you choose to park at the park's parking lot, there is a $3 fee. Also, make sure you don't park at the plaza beside the park, else your vehicle will be towed away.
The hiking trail is quite easy without much elevation gain. The only difficult park is that some parts of the trails are quite sandy and difficulty to walk on. In addition, keep in mind that this is also a mountain biking trails and many bikers are on this trail. So just walk on the side when there are bikes coming through.
We got to the intersection after about 40 minutes and there are more signs and maps to show which way to go. The Red Rock Canyon trail would be on the right side and leads into a small trail that no bikes are allowed. We proceeded onto the Red Rock Canyon trail for about 10 minutes and we really enjoyed the hike here. The trail goes through the meadow and it was extremely quiet!
We finally reached the Red Rock Canyon and that is where the trail ends! The rock was painted with beautiful red color. Unfortunately it was cloudy on this day and there wasn't much sun light, else it would be even more beautiful. It would be the best to be here during the sun set as the sun shines onto these rock from the west!
Overall, it was a fun trail to hike on and a great place to get away from the busy city life. It was so quiet on the trail and the only thing we could hear were bird chirps.
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