Wildflowers and Caves at Pinnacles National Monument

It was an extremely busy day yesterday. Brunch with mom and dad in Half Moon Bay, our son's Little League game, and later the Stanford Pow Wow. We were fairly well exhausted last night, but still when we got home, we readied our packs for today's hike at Pinnacles National Monument. We got our packs ready, bought some deli sandwiches from the grocery store, and put our clothes out. Duane was not feeling well with a worsening cold, so even though he got his pack ready, he wasn't sure he would go.

Along with my Thermarest pad and tent, I also added an extra 7 pounds to my pack for a total of 35 pounds of weight. What kind of insanity causes me to add barbells to my backpack? I'm conditioning to give Half Dome another try. I need to develop muscles that are capable of carrying 35-40 pounds without flinching by simulating the weight I would carry on the day we backpack into Little Yosemite Valley.

Because the drive to this hike from San Jose is about an hour and 45 minutes, we needed to get up really early in the morning. My alarm went off at 5:00 am. Yuck. Definitely not enough sleep last night. After determining that Duane wasn't going to go because his cold was worse than yesterday, I tried to convince our son to go with me. No dice. If Daddy wasn't going, he wasn't going. The lure of caves, lizards, wildflowers, big rocks to climb on, and possibly California Condors was not strong enough to get him out of bed at 5:00 am. So I showered, got dressed, and took off by myself to our carpool rendezvous at Santa Teresa Village Shopping Center, right in front of the Nob Hill Grocery Store. I made sure to check that it had coffee and was open at 6:00 am.

Unbeknownst to me, however, the invitation that I wrote up for posting to Deb's Evite hiking list, got slightly changed. She set the carpool rendezvous time for 7:00 am. So when fellow hiker Angela called me the night before to make arrangements to be picked up in Gilroy, she didn't understand why I wanted to pick her up 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave the parking lot in Santa Teresa. And when I texted fellow hiker Chris at 6:00 am, asking if he was up yet, he just about had a heart attack thinking he was late and high tailed it out of his house. (I've got to give him kudos for getting to the parking lot at 6:15 am. I don't think I could have done it!) We didn't figure this out until we were all in the car and on our way to Pinnacles.

I had time to buy some juice, coffee, and a cinnamon breakfast roll while waiting for Chris, and we shared this in the car on the ride down. Poor Angela had to put up with two amateur radio operators in the car, but hopefully we weren't too bad and didn't bore her. The ride was free of traffic and we made great time. We got to the Visitor Center on the east side of the park, which was then closed. We thought this would be a good time for a bathroom stop, but even that was closed. So we drove on to the Old Pinnacles trailhead. I stopped at the entrance gate and purchased a new National Parks pass as mine had expired eight days previously.

After finally making our bathroom stop, we readied our packs and hit the trail at about 8:30 am. The first part of the hike was over level terrain on the Old Pinnacles trail, which follows the West Fork of Chalone Creek. The Creek was mostly dry now, but what was immediately evident was the number and variety of wildflowers in bloom. Spring came late, but it has most definitely sprung! The first thing I noticed was a new variety of monkeyflower, Notch-petaled Monkeyflower, with bigger paler blooms than the regular variety. Among the most beautiful flowers we saw early on was Elegant Clarkia - just before a coyote crossed our path.

After the first mile, we began to have incredible views of the craggy rock formations that are the Pinnacles. We began to climb a rocky trail that all but disappeared into the boulders, then followed a creek bed right into the Balconies Cave. Had I know ahead of time what I signed us up for, I might have thought twice about taking a backpack in here. There were some low and tight spots which made getting through with a backpack exceedingly difficult. I took the pack off in several places in order to get through. Although flashlights are absolutely required, the trail inside the cave is well marked with numbered sign posts and, in a few places, railings.

After emerging from the cave, we continued on the Balconies Trail until we reached the Chaparral Ranger Station. As one might expect from the name, this area is a chaparral microclimate. Views of the craggy peaks were much better on this west side of the range. From here, we hiked onto the Juniper Canyon Trail, which would take us into and up the side of the canyon traversing multiple switchbacks. From the base of the peaks, the climb looked very intimidating and even more so with me carrying my heaviest backpack to date. I wondered if it would be like the Half Dome trail out of Little Yosemite Falls with its seemingly interminable switchbacks. It was. We continued to see many beautiful wildflowers, including the Venus Thistle, Western Wallflower, Blue Dicks, and Cream Cups

About halfway up the side of the mountain, we turned onto the Tunnel Trail. This would take us up to the High Peaks Trail, avoiding the steep and narrow section while at the same heading in a direction that would complete our loop. Just before passing through the tunnel, we saw a bunch of California Condors, with their signature white beneath the wings, riding the rising air currents as they pushed up against the Pinnacles. Beautiful!

The terrain along this trail was also some of the most spectacular that I have seen on a local hike. As we rose higher and higher in the canyon, the views, both of the canyon and the Pinnacles themselves, became ever more grand. These grand rock formation are actually what remains of an ancient volcano. We had an excellent panorama view of the valley to the West towards Hollister.

The weather couldn't have been better. The average temperature for May 9th is 78 degrees, with the record high being 98 degrees. The Pinnacles is really a Spring hike as temperatures here can be as high as 110 degrees in the summer. As I planned this hike, I knew I would need to keep an eye on the weather and cancel if it got too hot. As it turned out, I didn't need to do that at all, since we've had an unseasonably cold and long winter. The temperature never got over 70 degrees. It was cloudy and overcast for much of the day. There was a small chance of rain, but so far the weather had held. We were very blessed!

Several switchbacks later after the tunnel, we reached the High Peaks trail and the ridgeline where we could see for miles in all directions. Here we sat down and ate our lunch and rested for a while. I took off my boots. My liner socks which were bunched up against my toes and causing some pain. What I needed was some Glide, but that had unfortunately been left at home. I decided to try using some chapstick instead, and that actually worked, though I think that tube is now a goner!

After lunch we continued on down the High Peaks trail towards the Old Pinnacles Trailhead. Although this trail runs through the High Peaks, it is fairly level to gently sloping in this area as it runs along the ridge line. We continued to see many beautiful wildflowers, including the Butterfly Mariposa Lily (isn't that redundant?), Indian Paintbrush, Bitter Root, the Blue Fiesta Flower and the Spreading Larkspur, which reminded me of an iris, although quite small.

Eventually, we reached a trail junction and had to decide whether to hike down the Condor Gulch Trail or keep hiking down the High Peaks Trail. Initially, I had planned to take the Condor Gulch Trail, but since Chris had a commitment after the hike and we had already seen several Condors, we opted to continue along the High Peaks trail. This shaved about one mile off the total distance of our hike, turing what would have been a nine mile hike into an eight mile hike. Given that we'd all acquitted ourselves admirably on the 1500 foot elevation change up those switchbacks, I wasn't too concerned.

The other consideration was that it was starting to sprinkle, and at times more than that. Fortunately, I had my rain poncho with me and I put it on. I still don't have a lightweight, waterproof backpacking jacket for which I've been contemplating another trip to REI.

Just as we were almost at the end of the High Peaks trail, who should we run into but Deb and her friend Roger! What a surprise! They hadn't planned to go on this hike because they had dome some very strenuous hiking the day before. What a hoot to run into them at the end of our hike.

About 200 more yards and we were back down to the flat, off the High Peaks trail and back onto the Old Pinnacles Trail that would take us back to the parking lot - and the bathroom! We stopped at the Visitor Center on the way out where I purchased a patch and book on Condors for our son.

What a magnificent and beautiful hike!