Thursday, May 23rd dawned cool and damp in the Hobson Park campground. The temperature was in the low 50s and the mist from the ocean spray overnight had left everything damp at the campsite. No problem. We knew we were heading to a warmer and drier campground in Pinnacles National Park. Things would surely dry quickly there.
It was a short and easy three and a half hour drive to Pinnacles. We didn’t even have to stop for lunch, as our ETA was right around noon, so we could eat at our new campsite. That was a nice change. There would be no eating huddled under the meager shade provided by our car’s tailgate.
While we are not quite to the point of setting up the tent in our sleep yet, we continue to improve. Even with a slight wind, we were able to get everything settled for our two night stay at national park number 11 of our grand tour.
The weather had definitely improved. It was sunny, in the 70s, and took no time for the tent to dry out under a brilliant blue sky. In a departure from normal, we had an afternoon free to relax and it was very nice.
Beth walked up to the visitor center and did her usual great job of garnering the crucial information we needed to make the most of our stay. The staff member recommended we hike the Old Pinnacles Trail and take the Balconies Cave Trail, which led to and through a cave created by a rock slide at some point in the past. We love caves so that was not a hard sell. Now that we had a hiking plan for the following day, we enjoyed a carefree afternoon in the campground.
Pinnacles is a relatively new national park, designated in 2013. It has something that almost no other park has–a swimming pool. The campground was apparently privately owned at one point, and when the National Park Service purchased it they maintained not only the swimming pool, but the campstore and, to our great surprise, showers in the restrooms. Although we were not interested in swimming, we were definitely interested in the showers. I’m sure we both still had desert dust to be washed from our bodies.
As evening approached, Beth prepared a great pulled pork meal which we enjoyed as the sun began to set. With the setting sun came cooler air. I checked the expected overnight low on my phone and it said it would be in the low 40s overnight. Armed with this information, we began the process of preparing for a chilly night.
And what a process it was. I had a long pair of pajama bottoms and wool socks, and then I added five layers to my upper body, including a tee shirt, two thermal long sleeve shirts and two hoodies. I topped that off with a knit cap for my head. You think that is a lot, you should have seen Beth. I believe she had four layers of pants and at least 6 layers on her upper body. She looked like Ralphie’s little brother Randy from the movie A Christmas Story. Her upper body looked like the Michelin tire guy and she could barely move her arms. She kept her coat nearby for deployment should she wake cold during the night. I was doubtful she could get it on with all of the other layers. She too topped off her head with a knit winter cap and we both wiggled into our sleeping bags hoping not to end up with hypothermia.
It’s a good thing we dressed in many layers. When I woke up in the morning and checked the temperature, it was 38 degrees! Much colder than the predicted overnight low. It was cold, really cold. I think it is safe to say we were not happy campers at that point. After spending two plus weeks in the desert, enduring temperatures in the 100s, we were now shivering at just six degrees above freezing. It was almost a 70 degree difference from our highest temperature in Death Valley of 107. Our poor bodies were in shock. At least the sun was shining and there was no wind, so I can’t report the wind chill real feel. 38 was cold enough.
I changed into a pair of jeans for the day, but left the five other layers on my upper body as we were preparing to take a nice hike. Beth layered up as well, but I believe she did shed some pants. Fully bundled up, we took off for the Old Pinnacles Trailhead, about a 2 mile drive from our campground.
It was still early in the morning when we began our 6.5 mile hike, and there were only 3 or 4 other cars in the parking area when we arrived. We changed into our hiking boots, grabbed our walking poles, and headed for the trail. I know I sound like a broken record, but it was another beautiful trail. We walked through bright green meadows, stared up in awe at the spiraling pinnacles and rock formations on every side, and kept a keen eye out for the parks most famous inhabitant, the California Condor. The condor, the largest of all flying birds, makes Pinnacles its home and after staving off extinction, the population there is growing. We were hoping to get a peak at this giant raptor.
We continued our hike and reached the trail junction for Balcony Cave, which we took. It was a bit difficult to follow the trail because of the large boulders obscuring it, but eventually we arrived at the gate into the cave. The cave became very dark very quickly. Fortunately, we head a headlamp that we used to find our way through the twists and turns and ups and downs as we proceeded our climb. We had to scramble on many occasions over rocks and several of the openings required some contortions to fit through, especially with the backpack I was carrying. It was just what we were hoping for as we love caving. It took us more than 10 minutes to carefully weave our way though Balcony Cave until we finally literally saw the light of day at the end. We exited the cave and continued on the Balcony Cliffs trail, which was about a three quarter mile up and down the mountain, before rejoining the Old Pinnacles Trail.
The higher we climbed, the more amazing became the views. It became quite clear how the park got its name, as pinnacles shot up in every direction. At one point, we saw high above a bird gliding effortlessly on the air currents. It was huge, even at the distance from which we were observing it. We had binoculars and through them I was pretty sure it was a condor I was looking at. I gave the binoculars to Beth for her to see. Before long, four other birds joined the first in lazily circling the tops of the pinnacles. We were quite excited to have the opportunity to see these, what a sight. We spent quite some time admiring the raptors so high in the sky. Beth was even able to get some great pictures using her long range lens.
Satisfied with the show from above, we continued on the trail. We passed a young lady approaching from the opposite direction and called her attention to the squadron of condors above. She looked up and immediatly said, “those aren’t condors, they’re turkey vultures.” Talk about bursting our bubble. She informed us that condors have a pocket of white on the underside of their wings, while turkey vultures have all black. Sure enough, the underside of the wings of the birds overhead were black. She apologized for disappointing us and we parted ways. Well, they sure looked like condors to Beth and me. We have seen our share of turkey vultures, and while they are big, the birds we saw seemed much bigger than any we had seen before. I kidded with Beth that we had seen condor vultures. It was still a fun few minutes while we were under the false impression that we had got to see condors.
As we made the turn for our campground, we each began shedding layers. It was now late morning and the temperature was warming nicely. We had thawed out and now we were beginning to sweat under all of the clothes we were wearing. When we arrived back to our tent, we were both down to a single layer. It felt great.
We enjoyed a nice lunch at our campsite, took advantage of the free showers nearby, and spent the rest of the day relaxing under a bright and warm sun. We were content with doing that. While we considered another hike in the park, we decided that a quiet and restful afternoon would do us good, and it certainly did.
Pinnacles is a neat place and quite different from what we have seen to date. It was great walking through its diverse landscape and although we didn’t get to see the condors, for a brief shining moment, we reveled in the mistaken understanding that we had.
In the morning it’s off to a new campground from which we will explore Sequoia, before heading to the Azalea campground in Kings Canyon. If you’re reading this, I guess we finally found internet access. Enjoy.