Whiting Ranch Regional Park lies adjacent to the housing tract where Jane’s brother, Kevin, lives with his family in the hills above Irvine in Orange County – the park gained notoriety back in 2004 when the most recent fatal attack by a mountain lion in California occurred here. One of the more remote canyons within the park features red sandstone cliffs, pitted and gracefully shaped by wind and water erosion – Chris and Kevin had hiked into Red Rock Canyon one afternoon some 25 years ago, so when we were looking for something in the OC area to finish off our anniversary weekend, this 5-mile hike fit the bill. We drove down from Wrightwood on Sunday morning, paid a visit to Jane’s grandparents in Irvine, then headed up to Foothill Ranch and the trailhead off of Portola Parkway. We tried to reach Kevin to see if he or our nephew, Jacob, wanted to join us, but, since they already had other plans, we ended up setting out by ourselves at about 12:30pm. The small parking lot at the trailhead was nearly full, but the adjacent lot in front of a Ralph’s grocery store had plenty of spaces – the weather was warmer now than in the morning and we needed to change clothes, so we found a space sufficiently removed from foot traffic and changed in the car (plus, we saved $3 by parking away from the self-pay station at the trailhead). Passing the mountain lion warning sign at the trail gate, we marched briskly up the gentle path as it meandered northward through Borrego Canyon, passing under oak canopies and crossing sandy washes. As with any open space area surrounded by suburbia, we saw lots of people on the trail – young families, couples young and old, trail runners, and mountain bikers were all present this pleasant afternoon on a popular local trail. Before long, we reached a junction with Mustard Road – a kiosk here held a map of the park which was helpful, since, until this point, we had been navigating based on Chris’ fading memory. The map – thankfully – confirmed Chris’ recollection of where to go, so we turned right up the road, finding the side trail to Red Rock Canyon well marked and leading away to the left a short distance later. We immediately felt more secluded leaving Mustard Road – the Red Rock trail is hikers only, and a party coming out as we entered the canyon and one other solo hiker on our way out were the only people we saw in this area, compared to dozens we had seen on the main trail. Leaving the road in a wide part of Borrego Canyon, the Red Rock trail winds up and into a narrowing system of brushy washes, the cliffs becoming higher the deeper one goes. The canyon headwall to the north is probably better than 100′ high, and the twisted sub-canyons below all ended in their own lesser headwalls. We chose one to the northwest and followed it as high as we could before the rocks became too steep and slippery – undaunted, we scrambled back down, picked our way out, then tried the same approach in the adjacent canyon. Here, we were able to get a little higher before finding ourselves at a cliff edge maybe 15 feet tall and nowhere else to go. Out of options, we snacked on some granola bars before retracing our steps back out of the steep canyons and into the broad wash below. The trip out through Borrego Canyon was uneventful, except that Jane was moving at what seemed to be an abnormally fast pace (maybe it just felt that way after yesterday’s effort on Mt. Baden-Powell). All told, we made the round trip in under two hours. Though scenic, the red rocks didn’t quite live up to Jane’s expectations (she had been anticipating something on the scale of Pinnacles National Park) – still, it was a pretty hike and a nice way to wrap up the weekend.