I was about to find out just how painful it could be to crawl through wild chaparral, all in search of what was rumored to be an incredible rock formation hidden in plain sight.
Almost immediately I found myself struggling to make my way through the dense brush. I twisted one way then another, yet the hidden thorns on the ceanothus bushes caught my shirt and penetrated deep enough to draw blood on my exposed legs. Stupidly, I’d worn shorts, and with every step I was reminded just how big a mistake that decision had been.
I was on an exploratory trip after several of my students came back to my outdoor class excited about a place they had discovered in the nearby frontcountry. One student described it as “the perfect place to climb rocks.”
Jeff Finear was one of a number of students in my class over the years who couldn’t sit still inside a classroom but whose relentless energy was unleashed whenever we headed outdoors for a trip to the mountains.
Jeff and a few of his friends spent much of their afternoons and weekends looking for places to climb. They had the determination to check out every rock outcropping they could spot, even if getting there meant bushwhacking through inhospitable chaparral.
From my classroom door at Dos Pueblos High School, Jeff looked north to the Santa Ynez Mountains and pointed to what appeared to be a circular outcropping of rock near the crest. Judging from where we stood, my guess was that the outcropping was a half-mile or more wide. He and several others in the class said they had been there several times and that getting there was “eazy-peazy.”
Boy, was I in for a surprise.
Had I worn a pair of cowboy chaps, a leather vest, gloves and glasses, I suppose it might have been an uneventful trip. But in shorts, a long-sleeve tee shirt, sunglasses and a UCSB cap from my university days, I was what might generously be termed “well unprepared.”
By the time I reached the sandstone outcroppings, you’d think I’d been mauled by a wild animal. After seeing how the chaparral had perforated my legs, being mauled might have been more humane.
I climbed through a narrow opening in the rock and worked my way onto the top of what I realized wasn’t a sandstone slab, but a wide boulder field. The view resembled a stone puzzle of immense size, with each boulder separated from the next by narrow channels, some only a few feet deep, others 10 feet or more.
Moving horizontally from one boulder to the next turned out to be a challenge. At places I found myself staring across at a boulder that I needed to get to, only to find it involved a 6-foot jump. This might have been easy enough if the drop wasn’t too far, but here the channels were 15 to 20 feet deep.
No way was I going to try that.
Instead I found myself constantly frustrated, working my way down and then back up over boulder after boulder in order to make any progress. Eventually I ended up at the southernmost extent of the rock field, exhausted and wondering how I would ever find my way back up the mountainside.
It was then I stumbled upon the section I came to call the Narrows, a thin rock crevasse 15 feet deep that was so tight I wasn’t sure I could shimmy my way through without getting stuck. In places I had to turn sideways to make my way. Hunched over and eventually on all fours, I worked my way through the slot and emerged back into the sunlight.
The next day when I got to class, I thanked Jeff and told him how much I appreciated his tip, though I skipped the part about my battle with the chaparral. Long pants and a long-sleeve shirt helped hide the damage.
“Let’s call it ‘Up ’n Downs,’” I said. “You can’t go more than five feet without having to go either up or down.”
Jeff thought for a moment, then replied, “Naw, that’s no good. It’s the Playground, gotta be the Playground.”
So the Playground it became.
I’ve been back many times since, sometimes with my students and other times with friends. Even now, it’s almost impossible to follow the same route twice. That, of course, is part of why the name stuck.
