Pictures: Lyle Such
Camera: Canon 5d Mkiv
Trail Details:
Distance: 10 miles
Difficulty: Strenuous, especially with the sun and heat of summer.
After visiting Glacier National Park, Thu and I started looking up all of the national parks, and realized we had another just a few hours from Los Angeles, Pinnacles National Park. After a quick stop in San Jose we headed for the park.
We started in the cool shade of the valley and it looked to be a promising hike. The scenery wasn't unfamiliar to us, but it had some unique rock formations and plenty of wildlife. We figured an early morning start would help us avoid the heat of the summer sun, as long as we finished before noon we would be ok.
The morning sunlight was beautiful as it shone through the plants and peaked in and out from behind the mountains.
There is a system of caves on this hike. You have the option to climb through or around. You get better views if you climb over, but how can you say no to exploring caves?
They must close off the caves at night, there was a gate on each end.
Coming out the other end, the sun was getting higher and we knew the shade wasn't going to last.
Now we were starting to feel the heat of the sun. We started the hike almost two hours later than planned, so we knew we would have to hurry or the conditions would become dangerous.
Up until this point, the trail was relatively flat. This was the last stretch of even ground, then we would begin the ascent and face the section of trail with all the elevation gain.
We climbed out of the valley, and the views started to expand. Luckily we were still on the shady side of the mountains.
Pinnacles!
Lots of turkey vultures. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of a condor.
Once we reached the west side of the mountain range, it got a lot worse. The sun had been baking the ground all morning, and by the time we got there it felt like an oven. We were on a steep and treacherous path, with scorching hot handrails helping with the descent. After a series of ups and downs, we emerged from the ridge and were looking at the final, long downhill that would lead us back to the car.
We still had a long way to go, and the sun was becoming unbearable. At this point the temperature had reached over 100.
So close!
We finally reached the air conditioning of the car. 103 was the final temperature. It was a really nice hike, with nice variety and some really unique features, but probably better to take this one on in the spring, fall or winter.