Pinnacles National Park was a last minute addition to our itinerary. We tried to come here in 2017 but California was having a crazy heat wave and a terrible wildfire season. We had to cut that trip almost a full week short because we were on the run from fires and heat.
Normally this park is crazy hot by now but a check of the weather forecast showed it was only going to be in the upper 60s! Not only that, but there were plenty of campsites for the taking, and it was a good stopping point on our way north to the Bay Area.
We decided to take advantage of our good weather luck, and spend 1 night here.
After setting up camp we went on an afternoon hike via the Moses Spring trail to the Bear Gulch cave. The Bear Gulch cave is still closed due to Covid and recent vandalism so we couldn’t go in. We also got a bit turned around on where the trail continued to another trail we were trying to find. We ended up backtracking instead of doing the loop trail we intended to do. It was still a beautiful trail with lots of cool talus caves and the spring. There were several rock climbing routes and we came across some climbers. We saw vultures and maybe some condors (?), all kinds of squirrels and other animals.
We wished the trail map was clearer and markings on the trail were also more clear. We thought about trying the same trail the next day going from the other direction, but we just ran out of time.
Pinnacles is a small park but it more than makes up for it in views and wildlife. The campsites were shady and private with old growth trees and a small creek running behind some of them. The bathrooms were clean. We even had a cute family of quail foraging though our campsite.
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