Have you ever heard of Pinnacles National Park? Many have not and, in truth, it became a National Park only in January of 2013. Prior to that it had been a National Monument so it is the newest National Park and what a wonderful park it is. It has talus caves, high peaks, hikes among towering spires and crags, wildlife including the California condor, a gorgeous setting, nice campground, tall spires for rock climbing, intricate CCC trails and walls and an absolutely beautiful reservoir. The rangers told us that people are discovering how wonderful this park is and it is packed on weekends with people from the nearby cities around the Bay area. We are here on a weekday and it is not as crowded. The Visitor Center opened at 9:30 and we were on the doorstep with our questions about which was the best hike for us. She suggested the Bear Gulch hike (be sure to bring your flashlight) combined with the High Peaks trail (be sure to leave your acrophobia). And we were off.
Oops, the another thing you need to bring on a neat hike is a camera with the correct settings. Which I did not do. When we got home Gary was downloading today’s pictures and noticed that I had taken them with the smallest setting. Which means that I could get a lot of pictures on my memory card but the quality was poopy. I guess the only solution is: to take this hike again. Which we might. It really is one of my top ten hikes: for challenge, uniqueness, views, wildlife, CCC appreciation and just for plain fun.
The Bear Gulch Cave is a talus cave formed when huge boulders fell and wedged between narrow ravines creating dark tunnels and caverns below. Often the caves are not open as Townsend bats nest here but they are open now. At times the passages were narrow and short, I felt like a fighter taught to duck and weave. But - and - here’ s the plus - they had water running through the bottom of them along with some waterfalls.
The recent rains had worked wonders and we were treated to sights that many have not experienced. We ducked under the boulders, stepped carefully from stone to stone in the walkways (note the arrow telling us where the ‘trail’ goes)
and climbed the steps the CCC had carved into the stone back in the 1930’s and twisted around the corners. I’ve never seen a switchback in a cave but here is a CCC-built series of steps in a switchback.
A flashlight is not just a nice thing to have, it is necessary. Who in the world said: ‘let’s make a hike here, we can go under this boulder, we can build steps up to this opening?’ A fun hike and, judging by the reactions of others behind us and before us, they all enjoyed it.
Here’s one of my favorite pictures of Gary in the caves: looks like I’ve got to remember to take the lens cap off before I snap. I’m definitely having trouble with my camera today.
Then you climb out up this stairway and find this absolutely beautiful reservoir, surrounded by rocky slopes.
Here we found a family of 4 kids, 2 parents and 2 grandparents who were camping in the campground in 2 RV’s. They were having a blast at the park and planned on visiting the Monterey Aquarium tomorrow - hey, so are we. See you tomorrow.
We then took off up the High Peaks Trail. And ‘up’ is the operative word, for, though there were a few sections with a respite from the upward climb, it went inexorably up. However, finally, after many switchbacks and climbing, we reached the tall spires of the High Peaks. This territory is like nothing else in this area, which is more rolling foothills and green farmed valleys. Here it is craggy and each wind-eroded spire stands as a sentinel. Then we came to our first railing alongside the footholds carved into the steep rocks by the CCC.
You expect me to climb up there? Well, sure. And, don’t think you’re done with these - there are lots more. This one goes close to the rock wall and under an overhang while simultaneously going over a bridge. Luckily, there are handrails.
We wound around the tall spires, in and out, up and down, with lots of these footholds and railings. What a trail and how in the world did the CCC complete it? They designed it, carried up the heavy equipment to ‘blaze’ it, camped out in the spires and made a wonderful trail, full of exciting twists and turns. Thank you, CCC. Wonderful trail and it surely will be one of my favorites.
Beautiful lichen along the trail.
Finally, we saw a condor, what we had been scanning the sky for. It swooped and climbed flying on the thermals.
Oops, probably not a condor - probably just a turkey vulture, which is very similar to a condor. But, after we got a better description of what a condor looked like and the differences between it and a turkey vulture, we were sure that what we had seen was a turkey vulture. We heard many others say they had seen condors - 6 at a time in the campground, we heard - but they were turkey vultures.
While we were up there we found a member of the Condor Crew who told us that between the Big Sur and Pinnacles, they managed 58 condors. She was tracking all within a 30-mile area. All of them are tagged so that they can track them. (I should have asked her how they got condors ‘tagged.’) She told us that the condor population grows slowly since it takes several years before a fledgling is old enough to mate and, when they do mate, they only have hatchlings every 2 years. Thus it has taken a long time to build the flock up to 58.
We continued on and finally found ourselves out of the spires, heading back to the trailhead. We kept noticing how green the park was but a ranger told us that last week, before they had gotten 4” of rain over last weekend, it was brown. Usually by this time, the hills are carpeted with wild flowers but this year there are only a few. Unless they get more rain, this green might even disappear. And, speaking of rain, we read a story on line about the almond production in California. CA grows 82% of the world’s almonds and, because there is no rain, the farmers are not replacing their older almond trees. Did you know that almonds are the 2nd largest crop in CA: grapes brought in $4.5 billion in 1912 and almonds brought in $4.3 billion. I expect that almond prices will increase next year.
As we were leaving the park, we saw a sign of the previous name of the park. Seems that when our ‘active’, ‘agreeable’ Congress finally actually got something done and voted to make Pinnacles a National Park, they allocated no money for the change. So the park is relegated to using its regular annual budget to making all the necessary signage and other changes. Clever. On the other hand, this Park has seen a 30% growth in its visitation since it became a National Park. The word is out and even Californians are discovering this wonderful park that’s right in their backyard. It’s got so many climbing sites that lots of rock climbers are heading over here. The campground is very nice, too.
Back home, I served a secret recipe of refrigerator hash. So secret that I didn’t even know what I was going to put into it until I opened the refrigerator doors. I emptied several plastic containers filled with left-overs and we dined on memories of meals past.
But look what I have now. Lots of yogurt but we can’t live on yogurt. Looks like it’s time to go shopping.
By the way - did I tell you that we liked this hike?
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