"Deer Canyon Park is an anachronism. By the looks of the park, was once magnificent in it's grandeur. The park is still maintained, barely. With just a TINY amount of effort, it could truly be wonderous, but for reasons I haven't investigated, there does not seem to be the will to put in that minor amount of effort. I could be like a smaller version of Griffith Park, but in Orange County instead of Los Angeles. The park has a main entrance off of La Palma with a long driveway reminiscent of the driveways in the mansions of yesteryear, but good luck driving up that drive to get into the park. That is its intended purpose, and it may have once offered this capability, but those days are long gone. You can walk up the driveway and gain access to the park on foot via this asphalt. There is a gate at the entrance to the park on this drive. This gate is always locked (maintenance uses it sometimes), but its design permits foot traffic to pass next to it unimpeded. I've seen a few people access the park this way, VERY few. There are a multiplicity of entrances, and most folks use one of these other entrances since you can't really park on Santa Ana Canyon Road so you can then hoof it up past the gate.

On this road, past the gate, just inside the park entrance are actually working restrooms that receive periodic cleaning. On the west side of this road is a small picnic area with 3 or 4 tables and the entrances to some smaller trails that wind up and around the hills surrounding the park. Travel further up this driveway and you'll be met with the real, actually used entrance to the park. There's a small nature exploration where local classrooms will sometimes have field trips, exploring the wonder of the nature of Anaheim Hills. This asphalt drive Ts into another road. Going left (east) brings you out to the public street, where most folks park to see the park. Turning right (west) takes you further into the parks interior. This asphalt road is old, decrepit, and unmaintained. Further up this road are several other much larger picnic areas, all of them mostly overgrown and mostly unmaintained. I have seen maintenance folks numerous times within this park, but I've never seen more than one at a time and they never seem to be doing much, definitely no maintenance that would actually enhance the look of the park in any meaningful way. This road continues for another 3/4s of a mile or so. Along the way there are other roads that fork off, and other trail entrances one can take that meander to various other parts of Anaheim Hills. The entire atmosphere is one of a forgotten splendor, where families once gathered, children played, and the city put on events and had activities for visitors to enjoy. No longer.

This aslphalt road eventually turns into a dirt road, if you take the right fork when the chance arises (do this. not doing this takes you to oblivion manifest in various unimpressive ways). This road gets BADLY rutted out in the winter-time, and will eventually dump you onto a local residence's driveway where you can access the public road. DON'T STOP. Cross the street and continue down a very steep cement driveway. This is right next to the reservoir, which you can access at this point should you choose to, OR you can continue on, the road does, although its all dirt now and stays taht way for the next ~ 1/2 miles where it will eventually take you to Serrano.

You can actually keep going, and you'll gain access to a different Anaheim Hills nature park, but that's a review for a different location.

The park is free to access. There is no formal parking provided for the park, and parking can be problematic as you're essentially parking on residential streets where the local residents like to park THEIR cars. It's such a shame. $20K in materials and a few dedicated workers would be all it would take to bring this park back up being a very nice destination. That, plus road repaving would be nice. Ultimately, what the park REALLY needs is someone within Anaheim or OC Parks to have the WILL to do something."

Salvador Monella

"Firs time there I rode from Serrano down to Deer Canyon it was breath taking Very Beautiful."

Chosen 06 Elect 2120

"Many of the formal trails are overgrown if still existing at all. One of the walkways which is the trail most use now is all paved. Don't follow the google instructions it will take you to a shutdown entrance of Santa Ana Canyon. Pass that to weir canyon, turn right and into the neighborhood to go to the other entrance. There are lot of fun old trails but wear pants, the overgrown plants might cut you up(they did me). I'm not sure where the Santa Ana Canyon entrance is closed but it sure looks like it's been since way before Covid."

Tatiana Torres