Pinnacles National Park

Monday 2/26 – Wednesday 2/28

Monday

We left our amazing ocean front campsite and decided to break up our 4 hour drive to Pinnacles NP by stopping at Morro Rock, CA where you can often see sea otters and harbor seals. We arrived and immediately saw about 30 sea otters. There were mothers and juveniles hanging out in the harbor. We didn’t see any seals and we walked out onto a rocky point in hopes of seeing some, but there weren’t any. We drove past a dockside fish and chips place and Tim asked if we should get some for lunch. I said “Sure.” We ordered and while we waited for the fish we heard seal like barking. We walked around on the dock a little and there were two huge seals lounging on the back of a boat! Success!!

After we ate the delicious fish, we continued to Pinnacles NP. The park feels very remote. We pulled into the VC and took our photo and got out passport stamp. As we drove toward the campground we saw a huge flock of turkeys. One GREAT thing about Pinnacles campground is it has a pool and free showers!!! The pool isn’t open in the winter, but the shower was clean and hot and stocked with shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.

We found an outlet to charge up the battery a bit. While we sat there, we saw many interesting birds. Favorites were the western bluebird and the acorn woodpecker.

This campground is very secluded. We found our site and spent the evening deciding which hikes we want to do while we are here.

Tuesday

We decided to do the Old Pinnacles Trail to The Balconies Hike, a moderate 5.7 mile loop. This park is extremely lush and green right now! Very different from the desert parks, although it can reach over 100 in the summer. We crossed a small river 5 or 6 times and then climbed a bit. We were thrilled to see 4 condors. They were very high up, but we had our binoculars, and feel confident they were condors, even though we couldn’t get very good photos.

Humongous pine cone! Guessing it was placed here by someone.

Spring has spring here! Flowers and trees are budding.

Our trail kept crossing this sweet stream

We reached a point where we couldn’t find the trail. We backtracked a bit and headed the opposite way on the loop. We saw and heard lots of bird activity.

All Trails – you can see where we struggled!

There is a section of the hike called the balconies and there is a talus cave you have to go through to continue the trail. A talus cave is one made from rocks falling and clustering and creating the cave as opposed to water carving the cave. They’ve had so much rain that the entrance to the cave was through a river shin deep. We hadn’t expected that, so we had to go in with our hiking boots on and got them soaked. We were prepared for the dark in the cave though. We had our head lamps and flashlight. We were having difficulty finding our way through the cave. We were stumbling around looking and not finding the exit. Finally some other people came from the section we needed to go and gave us some tips and we found our way out back into the sunshine. We found a sunny spot and had lunch and finished the hike. Once we got on track, the cave was really interesting. There was a waterfall as we exited.

Back at the VC, we charged the battery and Tim enjoyed another shower. We returned to the campground for an Old Fashioned and sweet potatoes for dinner around our campfire. The bird song and frog song at night is deafening!! Seriously!

On the hike today we saw condors, lots of Stellar’s jays, 2 does and at the campground we saw lots of turkeys, California Quails, an Acorn Woodpecker, and other birds and bugs! We fell asleep to the cacophony of bird and insect sounds.

Wednesday

We planned to hike the Condor Gulch/High Oaks Trail, a strenuous 6 mile hike, but we saw that a MAJOR blizzard is forecasted for Yosemite for this weekend, when we are planning to be there. So, we cut our hike short, only doing the Condor Gulch portion, 3.4 miles and we headed to Yosemite.