Type "Hicks Canyon Trail" into any of the major trail apps and you'll get the same answer. It's an out-and-back. Four miles, round trip. About 173 feet of climbing. An hour to an hour and a half if you keep a decent pace. That's a fine description if you're a stranger to the neighborhood, planning a single afternoon walk before you drive home.
Nobody who actually lives in Northpark turns around at the top.
The trail apps aren't wrong. They're just answering a narrower question than the one Northpark residents ask. The real route, the one that gets walked on a Saturday morning without a second thought, isn't an out-and-back at all. It's a loop, and it changes the shape of the entire neighborhood's weekend.
The Trail Apps Are Answering a Different Question
Hicks Canyon Trail itself is short: 2.28 miles of blacktop that starts near Hicks Canyon Community Park and climbs the wash to Portola Parkway. TrailLink's own route data notes the trail features grade-separated crossings the whole way, which is a technical way of saying you never wait for a walk signal. At the top, most visitors from outside the neighborhood do exactly what the apps assume: they turn around and retrace their steps back down, for a four-mile round trip.
Residents don't do that, because there's a second option waiting at Portola Parkway. Continue onto the Peters Canyon Wash Trail and follow the bike lane along Portola back toward the start, and the same walk becomes a 6.04-mile loop, according to TrailLink's route measurement for that exact combination. No backtracking. No retracing the same eucalyptus-shaded quarter mile twice.
| What the apps list | What Northpark actually walks | |
|---|---|---|
| Distance | 4.0 miles | 6.04 miles |
| Shape | Out-and-back, same path both ways | Hicks Canyon Trail, Peters Canyon Wash Trail, and the Portola Parkway bike lane, joined into one loop |
| Elevation | About 173 feet of gain | Includes the Portola climb, not separately tracked by the apps |
| Where you finish | Same spot, same view twice | Same trailhead, having crossed two washes instead of one |
The difference isn't really about distance. It's about what the walk feels like. An out-and-back is a there-and-back errand. A loop is a circuit, and a circuit is the kind of thing you build a Saturday morning around instead of squeezing in.
Under Culver, Not Across It
Part of what makes the loop work without constant interruption is a detail easy to miss until you've walked it: the trail passes under Culver Drive rather than crossing it. The underpass runs beneath a canopy of eucalyptus trees, so the walk from Hicks Canyon Community Park doesn't stop at a crosswalk waiting for a gap in traffic. It goes underneath, then keeps going.
That matters more than it sounds like it should. Culver Drive is a busy arterial, and a trail that forced pedestrians to cross it at grade would break the rhythm of the walk every single time. Instead, the grade-separated design TrailLink describes means a resident can leave the house, cover six miles, cross two major roads, and never once stand at a curb waiting for a light.
The two ends of the loop have their own built-in stopping points. Hicks Canyon Community Park, at the western trailhead, has a parking lot, restrooms, a playground, and sports fields, so it functions as a real trailhead rather than just a sign on a fence. Farther along the eastern section, Citrusglen Park sits behind its own tennis courts, giving the loop a second landmark to aim for instead of just a mile marker.
Where the Loop Used to End at a Grocery Run
The loop's other terminus, in a practical sense, is Northpark Plaza, sitting at the corner of Culver Drive and Irvine Boulevard. For years, that stop meant Albertsons: reliable, generic, the kind of grocery run that had nothing to do with why anyone chose to walk the loop in the first place.
That space is now H Mart. When the store opened, Irvine's mayor at the time, Farrah Khan, showed up for it and told the crowd:
"I'm very excited for the opening of H Mart in Northpark."
The store's food court didn't just replace a pharmacy counter with produce aisles. It brought in a lineup of vendors that turned the plaza into a destination in its own right: Changwadang for Korean dumplings, Moobongri Soondae for Korean soondae soup, Cho Dang Tofu House for Korean-style tofu and barbecue, and Paik's Noodle for Korean-style Chinese cuisine. H Mart's president, Brian Kwon, described the philosophy behind it simply: "We enrich lives with our Asian heritage, food and culture."
The point isn't that a grocery store changed hands. It's that the loop's finish line went from a chore to a reason to keep walking a little farther.
The Reward, If You Keep Walking Past the Food Court
Northpark Plaza's dining lineup extends well past the food court. Kiyo Sushi & Sake sits in the same center, and its modest storefront gives away nothing about what's actually on the menu. Sea urchin alone ranges from a simple handroll up to uni pasta and imported Hokkaido and Santa Barbara uni boxes, alongside chalkboard specials like ice abalone carpaccio and sauteed Kobe beef, all backed by an unexpectedly deep sake list for a strip-mall spot.
A few doors down, bb.q Chicken serves Korean fried chicken, one of several Orange County locations for the chain, alongside outposts in Cypress Village and Quail Hill. Round out the plaza with Bruegger's Bagels and Starbucks for the morning end of the loop, and CVS for the errand you actually needed to run, and the whole stretch functions as what the Irvine Company itself calls it: one easy stop for the entire to-do list.
Why the Loop Rarely Needs a Car
Northpark is a 603-acre guard-gated community built out by the Irvine Company between 1999 and 2008, and it was designed with enough internal recreation that residents don't need to leave for most of what a weekend requires. The community includes five swimming pools, six parks, three tennis courts, basketball courts, an amphitheater, and a clubhouse, spread across its ten tracts.
That density changes what the Hicks Canyon Loop actually is. It's not a nearby trail that happens to be convenient. It's an extension of a park system that already includes half a dozen parks and five pools inside the gates. The six-mile loop and the plaza at the end of it cover groceries, dinner, a coffee run, and a genuine workout, all without a resident needing to get on Culver Drive or Jeffrey Road in a car.
That's the part the trail apps and the shopping center directory can't capture on their own. Neither one is wrong about its piece of the picture. But put the loop and the plaza together, and what you get is a Saturday that starts at a trailhead with a parking lot and restrooms, runs under a road instead of across it, passes two parks and a set of tennis courts, and ends at a food court that didn't exist in its current form a few years ago. That's not a hike near Northpark. That's how Northpark spends a Saturday.
If that rhythm sounds like the kind of neighborhood life you've been quietly looking for, or if you already live inside that loop and have wondered what your home is worth in today's market, Jen Gong knows this stretch of Irvine block by block. Reach out for a free home valuation and a conversation grounded in the same kind of detail this post is built on.
