[3] The creek begins in Laguna Niguel and flows west and south through a narrow canyon, partly in the Salt Corridor Regional Park.

The upper half of the creek, now filled in and graded over with suburban residential development, ran southwest through a small valley along present-day Marina Hills Drive then south along Niguel Road.

[6] It emerges from an underground culvert at the intersection of Niguel Road and Club House Drive and is joined from the east by a tributary from San Juan Canyon.

[3][7] The creek crosses beneath Camino del Avion in a culvert, and enters the Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point.

It is joined from the right by the Arroyo Salada Storm Channel, which drains from the vicinity of Crown Valley Parkway and Hillhurst Drive in Laguna Niguel.

It then enters a long underground culvert beneath Pacific Coast Highway, emerging at a concrete spillway near the north end of Salt Creek Beach.

[9][10] The Salt Creek watershed was shaped by seismic uplift of the San Joaquin Hills starting about 1.2 million years ago.

Dry weather runoff from the creek is captured, filtered for garbage and coarse solids, then treated with filtration and ozonation to reduce bacterial levels.