YORBA LINDA : Rustic Playground Will Be Relocated

For the past 10 years, the Adventure Playground at Hurless Barton Park has been a youthful equivalent of a construction site.

The two-acre playground, an expanse of trees, dirt, water and mud, was a popular place for children to spend the summer experiencing the old-fashioned fun of building treehouses and constructing water slides.

Today, the tools being used there aren’t hammers and saws but bulldozers and grading equipment.

And the building underway is for a community center, not treehouses.

Because of the center, a new site has been selected for the playground.

While it will remain in the park, the new location has little in common with the old.

The old site was ideally suited for the types of activities offered.

About 100 eucalyptus and pepper trees provided a shady spot for 8- to 12-year-olds to build treehouses and play in the water and mud.

The new location has some mature trees, but they are scattered around the three acres.

And though the city has planted about 60 trees there, it could be years before they are big enough to provide shade and strong enough for safe climbing.

Instead, telephone poles will be installed for the children to use for building treehouses, according to Steve Rudometkin, director of parks and recreation.

The popular water slide will be rebuilt, and the area will be fenced off from the rest of the park.

Rudometkin acknowledged that the old playground site will be missed by many who have participated in the summer program.

“We had a great program, one of the most popular offered by the park, and it has been dismantled and moved,” Rudometkin said.

Rudometkin also said the new site will be easier to supervise.

Trees were planted with sight lines in mind so that participants’ view of the park won’t be blocked.

As trees grow larger, the playground will take on more of a wilderness atmosphere, he said.

The Adventure Playground was started in 1982 to provide opportunities not usually available to suburban children.

Yorba Linda’s playground is open for six weeks in the summer to children ages 8 through 12, who can register for two-, four- or six-week sessions.