City of Corona Preserves Skyline Trail Area

Skyline Trail has increasingly become a premier destination for hikers, mountain bikers, and trails enthusiasts from all over southern California. Given the rising interest in Skyline and adjacent trails, like the Santa Ana River Trail, residents have envisioned Corona as a City of Trails...

This view will live forever, thanks to the vision and support of Corona Residents and City Council.

 Skyline Trail - Corona, CA

Skyline Trail has increasingly become a premier destination for hikers, mountain bikers, and trails enthusiasts from all over southern California. Given the rising interest in Skyline and adjacent trails, like the Santa Ana River Trail, residents have envisioned Corona as a City of Trails and pushed for the preparation of Corona’s first-ever Trails Master Plan in 2020. In response to this growing community priority, on December 2, 2020 the Corona City Council announced the purchase of approximately 292 acres of land in the Skyline area.

Residents are now assured of continued access to the Cleveland National Forest by way of Corona’s Skyline, Tin Mine, Skinsuit, and Hagador Canyon Trails, providing the City the unique ability to protect wilderness areas for future generations and foster new outdoor recreation opportunities for southern California. 

“Our community took a huge step forward towards this goal today,” said Jacob Ellis, City Manager, “so many residents have said over and over that they want to see more parks, more trails, and more places to access nature.” Considering that a portion of this land was originally slated for a new housing development, and would have blocked access to trails, Mayor Jim Steiner believes that acquiring this land for open space preservation “is one of the greatest things that has ever happened in our city.”

Mayor Jim Steiner takes in the view of Riverside County

With this “once in a lifetime” legacy project, Corona will nearly double its open space adding to the current 391 acres of open land. The total cost of the acquisition is $6,640,000 made up of $2.5 million from the City’s Park & Open Space Fund and $4.14 million in General Funds from the Budget Balancing Measures Reserve.

Additional maps of the property will be available the week of December 7, 2020. 

City Manager Jacob Ellis (right) and Mayor Steiner discuss the importance of trails and open space preservation