Lizards Mouth Rock

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.

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

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.

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.

The mouth is up there with a group sitting on it and more below.

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

Breaks in the hill allow more visions of snow.

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.

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.

The westerly view takes in Santa Ynez Peak.

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

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.

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