California Day 5 - Pinnacles National Park

Next up was Pinnacles National Park.  We had a great stay in San Jose, had a nice breakfast, and then got on the road heading south.  It was nice to have Rich and Kathy join us for the day!  Until more recently, Pinnacles had been a National Monument; it has been within President Obama's years that it became a National Park.  I would love to tell you when that happened, but the NPS website is still unavailable due to the governmental shut down - OPEN THE PARKS!

 



 

There is an east and a west entrance to the park; we came in on the west.  We understood that the east side is more substantial with camping.  The west side was for day use.  The east and west roads do not connect, however, it did seem possible to connect several hikes across the sides.

We primarily choose the west side because it has a relatively new visitors center, the Pinnacles are easily viewed, and there was a Balcony Cave hike termed easy that we thought we would do.

 

Upon getting to the visitor center on a weekday afternoon, we found it closed!  This beautiful brand new facility...and it was closed?  We looked at the outdoor exhibits and looked sadly at the door.  A nice young woman came out and explained that she could not handle any money, but that she would let us in to watch the video if we would like.  We jumped on that!  It seems that the ranger was at training that day, and hence the closed visitor center.  Really?  I suppose that it doesn't compare to the shutdown, but really?  There was someone there, so train them to take money!  You can't go build a beautiful facility only to have it closed!

 

Anyhow, the video certainly made us curious as to how much different the park would be during the wet season.  The day we were there was quite pleasant - even a bit chilly upon getting started.  You could see where in the summer months, it would be a fairly rough environment.

 

The park did seem to be a bit of a rock-climbers dream.  There were side trails going off in all directions with maps and instructions on climbing.

 

We got to the gate of the balconies cave it was open!

 

While termed an easy hike, it was not so straightforward.  



 



 Much of the path was clear with some elevation gain...

 

But other parts were very challenging with difficult footholds and low clearances.  You did need a flashlight in the actual cave portion.  There were no signs of wildlife in the caves at this time of the year.



 

At one point, Kathy and I decided to turn around while Rich and Rob continued forward.  It was a loop trail, so we knew that we would eventually meet back up with them.

It would have been nice to spend a bit more time here to explore and get a better idea of just how large (or small) the park was.  Upon the portion we saw, there would be some debate as to if it should be a monument or a national park.



 

When you have parks such as Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia at your backdoor, it seems that this one should probably be a monument.   Regardless, it was obvious from what we saw that it should be protected federal land.

 

We were really hoping to see a California Condor, but were not so lucky.  The only birds we saw were very vocal bluebirds.  This park is known for condor viewing.



 

A great day was had by all!  We had packed a lunch and enjoyed eating it amongst the terrific landscape.  The bathrooms and water on the west side of the park were all very well maintained and clean.

 

Before we knew it, 3:00 pm had set in and we knew we had to start the drive to Ventura about 4 hours away; we did not want to drive too much in the dark.  About 15 minutes or so outside of Ventura, we saw that the sun was going to be setting over the Pacific.  We decided to pull of highway 101 to stop and watch.  We turned off right into a county park and were not able just watch, but park and get out of the car...absolutely perfect timing. 

 



 

Furthermore, this quick pull-off exposed us to a whole new RV lifestyle along the beach.  We saw hundreds of them.  We suspect most of them had surfer tenants.  :)