“Save Coyote Hills!”
If you live in north Orange County, you’ve probably seen the signs and the bumper stickers, but you may have wondered, Which hills are the Coyote Hills and why do they need to be saved?
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Coyote Hills is a low range of hills located largely in Fullerton, but including parts of neighboring towns, running east to west from La Mirada Boulevard to the 57 Freeway, and sandwiched between Imperial Highway on the north and Malvern/Chapman Avenue on the south. Most of the hills have been covered with houses, businesses, roads and parks, but one small patch at the western end remains relatively undisturbed. That’s the part that some want to develop and others want to leave wild. (More about the controversy here.)
Most of the undeveloped hills are private property, owned by Pacific Coast Homes, but there are trails to which bicyclists, horseback riders and hikers have ready access. Saturday afternoon I took a stroll through the hills to see the subject of contention. Here’s a sound slideshow:
If you’d like to walk through the area yourself, there are several possible entrances, but many are tucked away on quiet neighborhood streets. I parked on the west side of Euclid Avenue, just south of Laguna Road and a bit north of Rosecrans, in between two churches. The entrance to the Robert Ward Nature Preserve there is clearly marked, though easy to miss if you’re traveling at speed.
