Lizards Mouth Rock

tagged:

Los Padres National Forest


Click for map.

I popped around to Santa Barbara and visited Bernard, who was skipping the holidays for the Wednesday night hikes, but out for the very short Lizards Mouth hike for the weekend. We hiked a mile extra along Camino Cielo on the way in and got that shortened for the way out. That meant passing the Playground, which wasn't so busy, before getting to the rock, which was bustling and humming with all the folks out for the last weekend of the year.

murky eastern view
Clear, but that doesn't mean there's much to see of Carpinteria on down the coast.

snow at 5000 feet
The last couple storms through actually dropped some snow, at least on the stuff that's 5000 feet high. Some fell lower, but it's gone now.

rocks among brush, reservoir, lagoon, islands
Some rocks of the Playground below. Further is a reservoir, the lagoon at UCSB, and the Channel Islands. The separation between Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa can just be seen from here.

I take the first trail into the exposed rocks around Lizards Mouth, which means a fair bit more traveling cross country and scrambling than is strictly required to get there. There are trails everywhere and often I seem to take the lesser ones. I pass three or four groups both wandering and settled among the lower rocks.

people on rocks against the sky
The mouth is up there with a group sitting on it and more below.


sun on the water
The sun is too bright on the ocean to see anything else.

snow on the northern mountains
Breaks in the hill allow more visions of snow.

rock hole with a thong of more rock
There's always an interesting bit of rock to find.

The group I'm with is settled down a bit from the top, but I decide I'll grab this "peak". It's on Peakbagger after all. I'm pretty sure I did before, but apparently I didn't claim it. There's another group just a few feet from the top, but if they shouldn't have taken the prime real estate if they didn't want brief visitors.

crowds scattered through the rocks
It's crowded up here at the top of the Lizards Mouth.

There's a little bit more to see from the top. Some things are even hidden just twenty feet down.

Santa Ynez Peak
The westerly view takes in Santa Ynez Peak.

more with snow
I'm not sure anymore, but I'm going to say that's Hildreth in snow to the northeast.

east along the ridge line
East along the ridge line gets to Divide Peak with Old Man Mountain popping up in a low spot just left of it, then Monte Arido further left.

We head out via a well used trail that today has a lot of water running along it. It's still not so difficult to keep the feet dry. This is a short way to the road without so many rocks to scramble up and down. Turns out, there's even a sign for the place if one enters at the right spot.

information sign
The information sign beside the watery track of a use trail. There are no official trails here.

And then we're off again.




©2019,2020 Valerie Norton
Written 24 Jan 2020
location: 6340 W Camino Cielo, Goleta, CA 93117, USA

Liked this? Interesting? Click the three bars at the top left for the menu to read more or subscribe!


Comments

Post a Comment

follow by email

popular posts:

Jennie Lakes: Belle Canyon and Rowell Meadow

Image
Kings Canyon National Park Sequoia National Forest Giant Sequoia National Monument Click for map. DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 It was another mild night, but the mosquitoes very nearly vanished early on into it. The sun comes quickly here and the morning golden hour is really quite something. I enjoy it with breakfast and happily the mosquitoes seem to be slow to wake up. Our northerly view from near camp: the morning sun as it hits Ball Dome. Morning over Ranger Lake. We head out to the trail again and wander gently downward, still high above the valley bottom. The air seems a lot clearer today and the snow on the far mountains is much more defined. The snowy distances.
read more »

Lost Coast: Cooskie Creek Route

Image
King Range National Conservation Area, Arcata BLM (purple line, map link ) DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4  |  DAY 5  |  DAY 6  |  DAY 7 I looked around at how soaked everything was from the dew and decided I had enough water to cook breakfast right there (well, on a rock under the Douglas fir) while waiting for everything to dry out a little. My windbreak trees became morning shade trees, but they were still blocking some strong gusts most excellently, so I wouldn't want to trade them. Good soggy morning! So I headed out on the faint old road to join a much better road until getting pointed off to the left at a gate. Trail gets really faint there, but it's all much easier to follow on the second pass than it was on the first. A bit sunnier, but most spots aren't much drier than they were. After the short road section, follow near the fence on the faint track. If truly desperate for water and it has rained well recently, there might be a tiny
read more »

Mount Lassic

Image
Six Rivers National Forest ( map link ) Mount Lassic actually has a trail up it, I just didn't know where. It was built (possibly by California Department of Fish and Wildlife, but still official and maintained) but not drawn on a map nor described except that its purpose is to move feet away from the rare lupine that grows over less than 4 acres in the whole world. All but a garden sized plot is on this mountain. I wanted to visit it, but not to stomp across its whole territory. (Also, I made really certain that my shoes were completely purged of any seed before arriving in the area. After Clover Gulch, that was a challenge, but worthy.) I decided to start off on a small trail I found by my parking. It was minimally flagged and marked and probably not the one meant for the public. There's a faint trail just to the left of the smaller tree here where the road drains its water. Weather seemed to be forming over the Lassics, as it had the last few days, but then roam
read more »

If the Map's Wrong, Fix It!

Image
OpenTopoMap (an OpenStreetMap service) showing my GPS track from backpacking in the Flat Tops Wilderness in 2016 . It is zoomed into the busiest entry point where one very excellent and well used trail is missing. The map in question is, of course, OpenStreetMap . While not explicitly setting out to do this, they've created the Wikipedia of maps and you probably use it even if you don't know it. It's on AllTrails and Strava and behind Gaia Topo and MapBuilder on Caltopo. If any of those have an error, you can fix it. There in the lower right hand corner on AllTrails is the attribution and an invitation to change and add to the map. It's not just on the internet. This is also the one electronic map I carry with me, offline , that I know it will cover the place I am. When I need a library, post office, grocery store, gas station, I can search and find it even if I haven't got any usable cell signal. The roads are (generally) there. The buildin
read more »