Ray Ford

Lizard's Mouth last July, framed by smoke from the Gap Fire.

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The sandstone outcroppings crowning the Santa Ynez mountain range above the South Coast can take wonderfully weird shapes, some reminiscent of temple ruins and others suggesting sagging human faces. But none has more character, or evokes more mixed emotions, than the hiking area off West Camino Cielo aptly named Lizard’s Mouth.

Obscured by new-growth brush after last year’s Gap Fire, the trailhead for Lizard’s Mouth abuts the main entrance to the Winchester Canyon Gun Club. Lizard’s Mouth is a massive rock formation. It is invisible from the road, but seen from the front, it clearly resembles the gaping mouth of an angry lizard. Thrusting slabs of Coldwater sandstone and rough, reddish-gray boulders dominate the landscape; a number of well-worn foot trails wend up the mountain slope.

These paths, which branch in no discernable pattern, often end abruptly in a thicket of chaparral and manzanita, or blocked by a giant boulder. They attest to the area’s popularity. Climbing rocks to get to the next level of a path is often the most direct way upward, as my companions in Gaelyn Chambers’s SBCC Adult Education nature hiking class found out (or rediscovered) during a visit in July. As we scrambled over the sandstone, gunshots from the neighboring range grew increasingly muffled but remained a leitmotif of the morning’s exercise.

Over the decades I’ve lived in Goleta, I’ve hiked this area only occasionally, but its sweeping views of the coast, the Santa Barbara Channel, and the islands always impressed me. From atop Lizard’s Mouth, weather permitting, you can see the cities of Santa Barbara and Goleta, the UCSB campus and Isla Vista, and a good distance west along the Gaviota coastline. Such a sight brings home how beautifully positioned, but how equally narrow and finite, is the shelf of land that makes up much of the South Coast.

The view from Lizard’s Mouth underscores the environment’s value and fragility, and it isn’t too much of a leap to extend that perception to life itself. Almost exactly nine years before the hiking class’s visit, a teen-aged boy had been bound, shot to death, and buried in a shallow grave somewhere near our location. Nicholas Markowitz was the central victim in the recently concluded kidnapping and murder trial of the fugitive “mastermind” Jesse James Hollywood. Years earlier, the actual shooter, Ryan Hoyt, had been convicted and sentenced to death.

None of the dismal details of that sad episode are obvious to the casual hiker today. Instead, when you clamber on top of the Lizard’s “head,” you find messages of love: “Marie-Pier [hearts] Antoine.” Or remembrances. Or just graffiti. This is a favorite place for local youths to watch the sun set. There are even metal spikes driven at intervals along the western edge to serve, I imagine, as pitons for novice mountain climbers testing their strength and skills against gravity and the rocks.

Chambers has introduced a meditation component to the nature hiking class and so, as we sat in a shady spot, there was plenty of opportunity for me to mull these thoughts. But I spoke to no one about them at the time, and no one mentioned any similar ones to me. We sat quietly with our thoughts, the silence distantly punctuated by gunfire. Then we trekked back to our vehicles.

Later, I asked Chambers about the choice of Lizard’s Mouth for that particular day, and she expressed surprise and chagrin about the timing. “If I had known it was near the anniversary of the murder I never would’ve gone there,” said Chambers, who is training to become a marriage and family therapist. “It’s an unusual place, and I like to expose people to different types of locations,” she added.

She has been leading the beginners’ Adult Ed nature hike classes for the past five years and found that “a lot of people” ask to hike the Lizard. She takes such requests into consideration when she plans the eight or so weekly hikes for each session. Likewise, she solicits themes or topics from her students for short, often inspirational talks she gives preceding the meditations.

“I’ve always felt that this was their class, and I’m their instrument,” she explained. “That’s why I have them pick the topics. I really enjoy that part.”

The theme for last month’s talk: “How to Be an Optimist.”

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