Arroyo Trabuco
Arroyo Trabuco (known also as Trabuco Creek) is a 22-mile (35 km)-long stream in coastal southern California in the United States. Rising in a rugged canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, the creek flows west and southwest before emptying into San Juan Creek in the city of San Juan Capistrano. Arroyo Trabuco's watershed drains 54 square miles (140 km2) of hilly, semi-arid land and lies mostly in Orange County, with a small portion extending northward into Riverside County. The lower section of the creek flows through three incorporated cities and is moderately polluted by urban and agricultural runoff.
| Arroyo Trabuco | |
|---|---|
Arroyo Trabuco shortly downstream of Interstate 5 | |
Map of the San Juan Creek drainage basin with Arroyo Trabuco subbasin highlighted | |
| Etymology | "Trabuco" is Spanish for blunderbuss. |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| Region | Orange County |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Santa Ana Mountains |
| • location | Northwest of Rancho Santa Margarita |
| • coordinates | 33°40′01″N 117°33′59″W |
| • elevation | 4,310 ft (1,310 m) |
| Mouth | San Juan Creek |
• location | San Juan Capistrano |
• coordinates | 33°29′24″N 117°39′57″W |
• elevation | 59 ft (18 m) |
| Length | 21.8 mi (35.1 km) |
| Basin size | 54 sq mi (140 km2) |
| Discharge | |
| • location | San Juan Capistrano |
| • average | 17.4 cu ft/s (0.49 m3/s) |
| • minimum | 0 cu ft/s (0 m3/s) |
| • maximum | 10,000 cu ft/s (280 m3/s) |
| Basin features | |
| Tributaries | |
| • left | Tijeras Canyon Creek |
| • right | Holy Jim Creek, Falls Canyon Creek, Oso Creek |
Acjachemen and Payómkawichum people lived along the perennial stream in settlements and hunting camps for 8,000 years before the invasion of Spanish colonization. Villages along the creek included Alauna and Putiidhem. Trabuco is Spanish for a Blunderbuss, a type of shotgun. Local legend attributes a Franciscan missionary friar traveling with the Gaspar de Portolà Expedition in 1769 for the story that a blunderbuss was lost in the upper canyon by the creek, and so the naming of the area. John "Don Juan" Forster received a Mexican land grant in 1846 for the canyon lands and creek and established Rancho Trabuco here.
In its natural state, Arroyo Trabuco supported one of the most significant steelhead trout runs in Orange County, and birds, large mammals, and amphibians still flourish in riparian zones along its undeveloped portions. Trabuco Canyon along upper Arroyo Trabuco, and long, narrow O'Neill Regional Park, formed from the original land grant of Rancho Trabuco in 1982, are popular off-roading, hiking, fishing and camping areas in the watershed.