2015 Road Trip - Pinnacles National Park

Yosemite | Monterey | Pinnacles | Bay Area | Northern California

We didn't plan to visit Pinnacles National Park, but we saw a sign for it on the way to Monterey and realized it might be a good replacement for our missed day at Yosemite. The park is tiny compared to Yosemite and has only 30 miles of trails. It has two entrances with no through road connecting them. We first stopped at the west entrance to hike the Balconies Cave trail. It was very hot and desert like along the trail so it seemed hard for only 2.4 miles. The trail contained a loop through a cave which consisted of an entrance that got narrower and narrower. Jamie couldn't make it through with Vivian on her back, plus her knee was hurting her so she turned back to the start of the loop while Rachel, Lily and I proceeded through the cave. The cave wasn't very long, but it did get dark and there was scrambling to do. Lily wasn't so sure about it initially, but once she got in she had fun. We exited the cave on another side and we hiked up some switchbacks for some time before we met back with Jamie and Vivian. I was worried about her because I forgot to give her water when we parted, but she and Vivian were doing fine.

After the hike we exited the park, drove a couple hours around it and then drove into the east entrance to the park's only campground. In contrast to Yosemite the campground was virtually empty. We were able to get a nice camp site with no one around us. It was hard to enjoy it as it was still very hot. There was a burn ban so the girls had to eat faux s'mores out of a box. We watched several large birds circling above us. We thought they might be California condors, but they were turkey vultures instead. Once the sun set the site finally cooled down. The girls were finally were able to sleep and I got a chance to do some star gazing until it was interrupted by some large beast (a deer?) running through our site.

It started to heat up rapidly the next morning so we packed up and headed to the nearby visitors center. There the girls got their second set of Junior Ranger badges on the trip along with a proper swearing in this time.