Shivering through the night in a blanket-stuffed sleeping bag while wearing a puffy jacket, down booties and a borrowed beanie and gloves wasn’t on my outdoors bingo card for the year. But that’s probably just my California hubris speaking.
Living here, it’s easy to take the comfort of year-round outdoor adventures for granted. And when I pictured heading south from the Bay Area to Pinnacles National Park for a weekend jaunt — opting for a two-night stay at the park’s tent cabin lodgings which include beds and a small space heater — I figured it would likely get chilly at night, but, like, Bay Area chilly.
I was wrong, but the journey was still absolutely worth it.
Arriving late Friday night, we enlisted our friend Bulleit to keep us at least spiritually toasty. The next morning, of course, we regretted leaning quite so hard on the whiskey’s warming effects. As a result, we completely neglected the advice I’d gotten earlier from park ranger Rich Moorer, who advises getting an early start whenever you’re visiting Pinnacles.
The parking lot at Pinnacles’ popular Bear Gulch Day Use Area routinely fills up by 9 a.m. most weekends, and the only way to access it – short of an additional 3-mile hike each way – is to wait for a campground shuttle that runs every half hour. By the time we arrived, the line was long, and we had to wait a couple of cycles to board the bus to the trailhead. (Luckily, we had a crossword puzzle handy to entertain us.)
From the trailhead, we headed up the Moses Spring Trail to the Bear Gulch Reservoir, then took the High Peaks trail upward – and upward (about 1,300 feet) – toward Scout Peak, where the trail crests and yields panoramic views of the Hain Wilderness. We ultimately opted for a 5.6-mile loop, heading back down the mountain on the Condor Gulch Trail.
Hiking uphill as the sun’s rays grew warmer throughout the afternoon made for perfect hiking conditions. That alone makes a winter visit to Pinnacles a worthy consideration – one of the park’s most common safety problems is hikers’ tendency to underestimate the heat at Pinnacles. During the summer, people are routinely caught off guard when they leave 60-degrees-and-partly-cloudy San Francisco and arrive at Pinnacles, where it’s a roasting 105 degrees, Moorer says.
Acrophobes, take note: There are several trail sections billed as “steep and narrow.” They’re not kidding — and some sections include staircases carved into the rock with cables to serve as necessary hand holds as you traverse the trail.
As we hiked, we kept an eye out for California condors, the critically endangered vulture considered the largest North American land bird. They’re most active in the mornings and evenings, so our timing was off, but we saw turkey vultures and other wildlife. Watching the birds soar over the valley shaped by an ancient volcano – the rock formations are the remnants of a volcanic eruption 23 million years ago and nearly 200 miles away – was nothing short of spectacular.
While the park’s condor population is perhaps its most famous, the territory is also home to Townsend’s Big-eared Bats and others and a diverse array of bee species. With nearly 500 different species, it’s among the most diverse bee population on Earth.
Back at the trailhead, the shuttle line had grown long by late afternoon, so we extended our hike by walking the last three miles back to the campground. There, we cooked up a hearty dinner, rallied for a board game and shivered through the night. We awoke to a frost-covered campground, a reminder not to underestimate this rugged, ancient landscape.
Besides its spectacular hiking possibilities, the national park is also a popular rock-climbing destination, known for its distinctive rock spires and talus caves. We had arrived via the park’s east entrance, which offers access to Pinnacles Campground and the Bear Gulch Area, by driving through Hollister and continuing south another 30 miles on Highway 25. There’s an entire other, day-pass entrance on the west side near Soledad, which offers even more hiking, plus easier viewing of the pinnacle rock formations and more convenient access to the Balconies cave, according to Moorer.
Next time, perhaps. On this particular Sunday morning, we packed up our gear and headed back to Hollister, where hot coffee and friendly brunch service awaited at the Country Rose Cafe.
Details: The east entrance to Pinnacles National Park is located at 5000 East Entrance Road in Paicines near the junction of highways 146 and 25. $30 entrance fee; nps.gov/pinn/. Campsites are $55 per night. Tent cabins start at $129.
Good to know: There is no cell phone service in the park, but you can purchase WiFi access, as well as limited snack items, at the campground store at the Pinnacles Visitor Center on the east side of the park. There is no road connecting the park’s east and west entrances; if you are using GPS for directions, make sure the instructions are directing you to the entrance you intended.