What are the rules to ride OC trails at night? I am thinking the Luge, Whiting and Bonner since I know where those are. Are there any fees? I ride late so I will park outside of the gates
Luge = yes Whiting - no night riding Bonner, I'm guessing you mean Bommer? LWCP & CCSP - no night riding.
NatFo: open all night, no gates that get locked at sundown to worry about State/regional parks: Close at sundown
Thanks dudes, without daylight savings my options will be limited. Here are more questions, if you go in with sunlight, when must you exit? Do I have any other single track options?
Although San Clemente Single Tracks are technically State Parks administered land, there is a tolerance for night riding in that area. For all other areas where night riding is prohibited, you must be off property by the end of twilight (rules says dusk or sunset, but if you're in the process of exiting and do not have lights, the authorities are understanding). And there's always the Fully Loop. Night riding in County/State Parks in OC has been floated as a "once-a-month" idea in Regional Parks, but not Wilderness Parks, but that would require staffing and there are already quite a few who poach right now and post to Strava. I'll bet you can find about a dozen posted rides with a start time of after sunset in Aliso, Oaks, Whiting, and O'neil each night starting today.
State/regional parks, I'm pretty sure they don't want riders on the trails after dark. NatFo, doesn't matter. If you want ST in the forest, look at Holy Jim and Trabuco Creek. Those lead to other great ST runs as well, but can be done as out/backs. Stop by the Path, grab a Franko map. PM me if u wanna ride, the nights after Monday will be awesome this week.
It's a shame that there are restrictions of when and where we can ride at night. Some of the park rules require revision imo. Just the other day I was climbing up mustard and some dude was bombing down. I thought to myself isn't this 1 way? Then I thought good for him hope he smashes his Strava time. Lol. Next comes the dh run down cactus some dudes were climbing up the trail in the other direction when I am at mach speed. I was like wtf are these dudes doing slammed my brakes and pulled over to let them climb by. I am not sure if cactus is 1 way or not but case in point rules are meant to be broken and in most cases violations can are tolerable to some extent. Same goes with riding when the signs say park is closed some people do choose to break the rule. Yeah we all know there is that saying it makes us other mtbikers look bad. But not as bad as all that TLD gear you have on. Haha.
The only trail in Whiting that is 1-Way is Borrego....all other trails....which are considered Multi Purpose and bi-directional.
Fullerton Loop. Lots of regional parks close after dark Irvine Regional closes at 9 for example. If they do you can ride there till they close. Edit: NM, just saw that most parks reverted to winter hours and close at 6pm starting Nov 1. There's still lots of trails to night ride though. Just local neighborhood trails like Fullerton Loop but lots of places have these. Turtle Rock has tons, used to live in Anaheim Hills and there's tons of local neighborhood trails there too.
I can probably find some trails, although the Luge sounds totally doable except for the pavement thing. I was looking at the map and if Whiting was open at night; the loop would be a slam dunk. My thoughts are now to park somewhere near the bottom, trudge up the grade for 30-45 minutes, see your flag and drop back into complete darkness. I ride with my ears wide open so someone bombing should not be a problem, unless you guys throw all hazard to the wind and ride well above what your vision allows. This is what makes night riding great, everyone uses lights and I can see light well before we cross path Happy night trails
