I’ve been back many a time since my first visit, some with my students and others with friends. It’s gotten visited enough now that the route in is simpler to follow and the rock maze much easier to navigate. Still, it’s almost impossible to follow the same route twice.
That’s the Playground. It’s one of those special local spots that doesn’t fully reveal itself until you’re on top of it.
Once you’ve made the short hike in and reached the rock outcroppings you’re faced with a number of choices: straight ahead involves a scramble up a steep “V” in the rocks that takes you on top of the formation. There are also routes either to the left or right that eventually do the same.
Once on top of the rocks, the adventure really begins.
What looks from a distance like a solid sandstone outcropping quickly breaks apart into a maze of separated blocks and narrow channels. Some of the gaps are shallow. Others are not.
That’s the nature of the Playground: less a single destination than a maze of decisions — up, down, around and across.
If you go, beware: many of the crevasses are deep enough to cause serious injury if you fall into them, but the jumps needed to get over them will tempt you to try. Don’t hesitate to go around to safer spots when in doubt.
At places the route narrows and the maze tightens. That’s when one of the most unusual features of the Playground comes into view: the Narrows.
It’s the skinniest slot I’ve ever gone through, narrow enough in places that you have to turn sideways to make your way. From a rock climber’s perspective it’s the perfect place to practice “chimney” style vertical ascents.
Farther in, the walls close tighter still, but this time large boulders and tons of earth have been poured into the opening, making it appear to be a box canyon. At the base, the rocks form a kind of superstructure, and the earth covers it to create a small cave-like entrance leading into a dark interior.
Hunched over, you can make your way for close to 50 yards, then it is on all fours to scramble through a tunnel not much more than 2 feet high, with only a sunburst of light to lead you on. At a certain point your way ahead is in total darkness, but just when proceeding farther seems hopeless the cave makes a dogleg to the left and, as you turn the corner, there is more light.
Fifty more yards brings you to the end of the cave and into a chamber the size of a small bedroom. In wetter seasons, water falls from directly overhead, the shower of trickles adding to the allure.
At this point, deep inside the bedrock, there is just enough light to distinguish the interior features, an indirect and soft glow that heightens the sense of adventure. The underside of the rock is cold to the touch and the air is crisp, in contrast to the warmth topside. Water seeps, drop by drop, into a tiny pool, not enough to sustain much life, but enough for a cluster of maidenhair fern growing by the edge of a thimble-sized basin.
Just ahead are a series of boulders stacked one upon the other. It’s an easy scramble out and into the light.
Then, just as suddenly, you are back out among the sun-warmed rocks of the Playground.
On a nice day you’ll want to sit back against one of the many boulders, eroded to the point they make pretty comfortable spots to relax and enjoy the afternoon warmth.
When I was running my outdoor program for a local public high school many years ago, I found it best not to prepare students too much ahead of time for a new trail. Instead, I allowed them to respond to what they had just experienced and then go from there—creating organic teachable moments.
We’d often begin with the simplest question: What exactly were we sitting on? In this case, geologists call it Coldwater Sandstone. From there the conversation would widen. How did it get up here? What happened to crack and lift the rock into formations like these?
Places like the Playground have a way of making people curious.
There is no better classroom than that.
The trailhead to the Playground is approximately 2.2 miles along West Camino Cielo from Highway 154, just past a power line that crosses the road. The path to get there is technically an off-trail route, so just as I did with my students, I’ll leave the precise pathfinding to you.
