Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park — Attraction in Ladera Ranch

Decided to spend the day at Caspers Park for a picnic on a Saturday got there about 1pm due to bad traffic, payed our $5 got a map and was advised the best picnic area was at the end of the road on the map, when we arrived there must of been about 40 horses tied up and spread out around the area, as much as I love hoses not the best place to picnic with all the dust and smells the horses created.

Decided to wonder back and look for another spot, came upon another small picnic area about 5 tables that were all totally occupied with other picnickers no spots left, continued to look found another area with about 20 horse stalls spread out about 5 stalls in use, drove to the edge by the creek found a nice spot by a stall that did not appear to have been used in years, set up our picnic under a tree, and enjoyed the scenery, no one around all the occupied horse stalls were by the road.

About 4pm a ranger drove by and told us this area was reserved for hoses only, we could not picnic here.

We packed up and slowly drove out, as we drove I could see the ranger out of her car chit chatting with some of the horse people under the big oak trees.

Very disappointed these are public lands and we should all be entitled to use all the amenities, 2 people picnicking under a tree in an area that was almost empty would leave virtually no impacted on the environment compared to all those horses, and the designated picnic area we were told to go to were full of horses???

Don't bother going to Caspers for a picnic unless you bring a...

My family and I have camped and visited the day use at Caspers for almost 10 years. We love the variety of hiking trails, clean restrooms, and proximity to grocery stores. During our most recent camping trip this month, however, we felt the park rangers were not as friendly as usual. They hovered over us, coming around our campsite often, and I felt like a child being watched over by a camp counselor. We were warned that our music was too loud on our first evening while we were on site #41. It is important to note that we also booked the two surrounding sites as we were a large group and none of the other sites around us were occupied on this first day. Essentially, there was no one near us and this was not during quite hours which is after 10pm. We lowered the music but were later warned a second time. It is also important to note that this is the first time, from my memory, that we were chastised for having music on too loud. Frankly, I believe our talking was louder than the music as, again, we were a large group of 20. This is a great campground for families, with children riding bikes around all day and amenities like a playground and nature center. I only wish the current park rangers would be more understanding and...

We stayed in the Live Oak section which is full dry camping in this area.

The sites are all gravel and most will require some leveling. We were in site 16 and had to level about 1.5" left to right. Our site also had a fairly large tree in the back corner so we had to be strategic about where we placed the RV. We have a toy hauler so it is taller than normal trailers. The good thing is the tree provided good shade but unfortunately shaded the solar panels on the roof for part of the day. Tradeoff I guess.

The nice thing about the dry camping section is it is pretty far away from Ortega highway so the road noise is much less. The sites with power are right next to the highway so I imagine it is much more noisy. Our site also backed to a nature preserve area so it was very private.

The grounds are very well kept. There are honey buckets but a full restroom just a short walk up the hill.

My last comment is about the staff. The ranger checking us in was super nice, personable and helpful. After driving away from the booth my wife said "he was my favorite person who has checked us in at...