Monday, May 19th -- We vacated the AirB&B, drove up to the Sisson's house, and did a load of laundry. While Betsy did that chore, I stowed some leftover kitchen hardware that Brent is giving me in the car. We also agreed to construct one more storage unit for Brent, thus we have some heavy vertical panels in the car to lug home.
We chatted with Stephanie and gave her early birthday gifts. Logan was at school, Brent was working doing conference calls, and Cooper was hanging out with us.
Around 11 am, we finished loading the car and headed south, via San Jose, to Hollister. We had brunch at a Mexican downtown cafe. Hollister is farming community located on a fault, which creeps regularly. It has several large food processing plants. We picked up some supplies at Safeway and continued the drive to the east side of Pinnacles National Park. It was designated a national park in 2013, but had been a national monument since 1908 (named by T. Roosevelt).
We claimed our tent cabin and then drove out to explore the park. It is a small park and it did not take long to cover all of the east-side roads. Note, there is no road that crosses the park connecting the east and west portions. We parked at the Bear Gulch Nature Center, and headed out to Moses Springs and Bear Gulch Reservoir. The trail led up a valley with numerous, large boulders formed by volcanic action - aggregate/conglomerate heavily eroded or carved into flat irons, pinnacles and rounds. The park has a few caves; the one in this valley was currently closed to protect bats (Townsends Big-Eared Bats). We hiked up the gulch next to a dry stream bed, then climbed up the rocks to the rim, returning to the start point, and descended back the valley floor. The hike was 2.2 miles and 500 feet vertical. It was a pretty introduction to the Park, its flora, fauna and geology.
We dined on our outside picnic table on salad, sushi, bread, and applesauce. It was a no-cook meal but we boiled water for washing up (used the Jetboil). We had an early night, waiting for the tent to cool down, which it did and by morning it was chilly.
Tuesday, May 20th -- Up to nice temperatures and bright sunshine, so it rapidly warmed. We had breakfast on our picnic table. Then we loaded up with lots of water and, after getting advice from the ranger, chose the valley route called Old Pinnacles, which went along the Balcony Trail and back through the Balconies Cave, instead of the wide open (i.e., no shade) trail to the highest points in the park. This later trail would have been too hot (unless we had started at 6 am , . . .)
The Old Pinnacles Trail was hot enough, though with brief amounts of shade. We climbed over 500 vertical feet (taking the high route over intermediate shelves or balconies on the way out) and went 7 miles. The route was hot and dusty, except for the 1/4 mile on the return route through the cave - we fortunately had a headlamp.
The hike went all the way across the park to the west side Chaparral parking area - there are not many national parks that one can walk across. We took a break here and refilled our water bottles. The walk back was along the same route, except we bypassed the Balconies and went into the cave, which really was a path through boulders that have fallen into the gulch. We had to scramble down jagged rocks, avoiding head knocks and once or twice sliding on our butts in the dark. The headlamp was essential to find each footing.
After returning to the campground, we had ice creams from the camp store, then rested. I worked on the blog/photos, then we strolled around the campground looking for the prime sites. The campground has abundant wildlife - fence lizards, families of ground squirrels, flocks of quail (including teeny chicks), a few bunnies and deer, and acorn woodpeckers. We were warned to lock up any food to deter the raccoons and crows, and a raccoon visited our tent the first evening. Turkey vultures and possibly condors soared in the skies overhead.
Dinner was on the picnic table where we heated curry soup in the Jetboil -- not something it was really designed for but I was able to clean the stuck food out of the pot. It is best used for only boiling water, which it does very quickly.
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