This is one of the newest National parks and probably one of the smallest. It was designated as a NP only in 2013. At least in west coast standards, it is relatively small! Those who don’t mind strenuous hikes can walk from one side to the next in 5 miles- up and over the peaks. Those of us who do not attempt strenuous hikes, drive for1.5 hours from the east to west entrance!
The pinnacles are really quite interesting, since you start with miles of standard California chaparral as far as you can see. This time of year it is fairly green and has grass. And lots of beef cattle grazing on it. There is a lot of at land between Highway 5 and the coast in the middle of California! Then all of a sudden are these beautiful orange-brown rocks thrust up into the sky. It was all caused by earthquakes since the park straddles the San Andreas fault line! And the caves are different from the ones we are used to in that they are talus caves- caused not by erosion but by rock fall. And yes, I went through the bear gulch cave and will not be doing that again. It was OK until the very last part where you have to cross on your hands and knees over a little stream. I have only one knee that can handle any weight so I was on 2 hands and one knee and one straight, fairly useless leg. My arms are not strong enough for that!! Or for getting up afterwards using ab strength. Like i know what that is! But I did make it out and do not ever have to do that again. And we didn’t see any bats! 😒
But what we did see is what the park is known for- it is one of the release sites for the captive California Condor. You may know that all wild condors were captured in the 1980’s (all 27 of them) and bred in captivity. They started being released back into the wild in 1991 and there are now 33 living in Pinnacles NP. And we saw 4 of them!! It looks like it might be courting season since they were doing parallel flights both horizontal and vertical, and staying pretty close together. We hiked a trail called the Condor overlook (why are these trails always pretty much straight up and down??!) and saw the first pair warming themselves up on the rocks before they took off in flight. It was below freezing in the morning so they needed the warm up! The second pair we saw from the western entrance to the Park in flight.
So it was an interesting couple of days. We are off to see the So Cal family before heading off to Joshua Tree NP.