Chino Hills State Park is a state park of California, in the United States. It is located in the Chino Hills, foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. It is a critical link in the Chino–Puente Hills wildlife corridor, and a major botanical habitat reserve for resident and migrating wildlife. Visitors can walk, horseback ride, or mountain bike on trails through valleys and along ridge tops through woodlands, sage scrub and grasslands. of trails and fire roads also offer opportunities for viewing wildlife and native plants. Facilities consist of a picnic area, camping sites, equestrian staging area and corrals, a historic barn, water and restrooms. Most of the trails are multiple mode use. A few trails are designated for hiking only for safety or habitat protection.
Geography
Chino Hills Park's encompass stands of oaks, sycamores and rolling, grassy hills that stretch nearly, from the Santa Ana Mountains to the Whittier Hills encompassing the Puente Hills. Chino Hills is vitally important as a refuge to many species of California native plants, and as a link between natural habitat areas essential to the survival of many animal species. The park is located near the intersection of Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. The park is located northwest of Corona, and lies almost entirely in the city of Chino Hills in the southwest corner of San Bernardino County. Small parts of it spill over into Yorba Linda in northeastern Orange County, and into extreme western Riverside County, near Corona.
Over the centuries, many people have made use of the open spaces and plentiful water, plant and animal resources of the Chino Hills. Prior to European contact, the Tongva-Gabrieliño Indians, who lived in :Category:Tongva settlements|settlements along the Santa Ana River basin for 8,000 years, set up temporary camps in the hills for gathering acorns, elderberries, walnuts and other seeds. After the Spanish founded Mission San Gabriel in 1771, the Chino Hills were used extensively for grazing by mission cattle. During the Mexican Republic era, the hills were used as spillover grazing from such surrounding Mexican ranchos as Santa Ana del Chino and La Sierra Yorba. The United States then conquered the territory in 1848 after battles with Mexican forces who declared US encroachment illegal. After this conquest, the land was still used primarily for grazing. Private land acquisition began in the 1870s and continued into the 1890s. In 1848, the Rolling M Ranch was established and the land leased to nearby landowners for cattle grazing. Some late nineteenth and early twentieth centuryoil exploration and mining activity also took place in the northwestern section of what is now the park. A ranch house, barn, and several windmills and watering troughs serve as reminders of the cattle ranching days.
Park founding
In 1977 the California legislature passed a resolution directing California State Parks to conduct a study on acquiring Chino Hills land for park purposes. A local citizen group, Hills for Everyone, worked closely with California State Parks and the legislature to create the park with an initial acquisition of. In 1984, the State Park and Recreation Commission officially declared the area a unit of the State Park System. Since that date, Chino Hills State Park has been expanded by numerous land acquisitions from various private landowners. Current documentation gives the park an area of and an establishment date of 1981.
