Day 7 – Pinnacles National Park

We got an early start today, partly because we wanted to beat the crowds to Pinnacles National Park – the website warns that the parking lots fill up quickly, especially on weekends – but mostly because we wanted to beat the heat. 

The 26,000-acre park is set in the southern Gabilan mountain range, about 40 miles inland, where the summer temperatures soar. We didn’t want to hike in the midday sun, so the earlier the better.

 It was foggy and 55 degrees when we left Pacific Grove around 8:30 a.m. We skirted the northern edge of the Santa Lucia Mountains, then drove southeast across the fertile Salinas Valley to the small town of Soledad, where we turned off the highway and started a gradual climb to the park’s west gate. By 9:15 a.m., when we parked the car at the visitor contact station, the car’s gauge read 95 degrees. 

 

Great news, though! There were no crowds whatsoever. A poor, lonely ranger at the entrance booth has the sad job of asking the few visitors who make it that far if they really even want to be there. Those who aren’t dissuaded by his grim welcome are warned to take a short hike, to bring plenty of water and to wrap it up before noon.  Well, goodie for us, because that was the plan. 

 

Pinnacles is named for the spires of rock that erupt from the surrounding foothills – remnants of a volcano that formed 23 million years ago about 200 miles to the southeast, on the other side of what is now Bakersfield. The volcanic field, set right on top of the San Andreas Fault, eventually split in two, and the halves have been drifting apart ever since. The part of the volcano that is now Pinnacles National Park is known for massive rock formations, sheer-walled canyons and boulder-bound caves -- shaped by eons of erosion, faulting and tectonic plate movement.

 

Today was not a day to be ambitious. Our goal was simply to complete the 2.4-mile Balconies Cave Loop by lunchtime. The trail is described as “easy to moderate,” with an elevation change of just 400 feet, but as we trudged out of the parking lot I started to panic. How would we accomplish even a short, easy walk in the suffocating hot-sauna air? How could I fill my lungs, when every breath seemed to wither in the back of my mouth?

 

As we got moving, though, we caught a whisper of a breeze and found shade amongst thickets of wispy gray pine trees and old-growth chaparral. And as we hiked deeper into the canyon, the sheer cliffs and rock ramparts provided shelter from the scorching sun, as well.

Toward the end of the hike, we scrambled through the Balconies Caves – which, to my surprise, are not the kind of caves that tunnel into the side of a mountain. These talus caves formed when earthquakes and landslides loosened massive stones that then tumbled into a narrow gorge and got stuck, creating a cave ceiling. For .4 miles we squeezed through rocky gaps and clambered over giant boulders. The park website advised bringing flashlights, and I had packed headlamps for this exact occasion, but we forgot those back in our room at Asilomar. Oops. It was only slightly challenging to hold up our iPhone flashlights as we blundered through the narrow passageways, and not entirely necessary, since slivers of sunlight found their way through cracks in the ceiling.

After the hike, we pulled the cooler out of the car and ate lunch on the sidewalk in the shadow of the visitor contact station. Keith worried that we would impose on other visitors. But no one came. We were the only ones crazy enough to be outside at Pinnacles at noon as the temperature climbed past 105 degrees.

 After lunch, we climbed into our cars and drove back to Pacific Grove, where it was 61 degrees. I threw on a sweatshirt, grabbed our family’s dirty laundry and found a laundromat in town where I was able to write a couple of sentences in the blog between loads. I’m really on the Struggle Bus with the blog this year, and I don’t know why. Is it because the kids are older, we’re busier, and we’re staying up later, so I run out of time? Or because I haven’t devoted much time to writing over the past year, and I’m rusty? Whatever the reason, I’m frustrated. I have to keep up.

 

In the evening, our group of seven dined at Julia’s Vegetarian Restaurant, an unassuming café -- tucked in a strip between the Safeway supermarket and Trader Joe’s -- that specializes in fresh, local ingredients. We started off with an exotic mushroom sampler and a roasted artichoke, then stuffed ourselves with tamale pie, butternut squash and pumpkin curries, and margherita pizza for the girls. Always adventurous, Keith ordered a whisky-kombucha sour that was, possibly, the only disappointment of the evening.

 

Perhaps to purge himself of the kombucha cocktail, Keith excused himself to the bathroom and was gone for a reaaaaalllly long time. I started to worry that the exotic mushrooms had done a number on his tummy. But he finally returned to the table in a state of bliss and gushed to the entire group – and likely others at nearby tables -- that his trip to the bathroom was a “life-altering experience.” Maybe it WAS the mushrooms. 

 

So, at Keith’s urging, one-by-one we all made trips to the single-occupancy restroom, where a smoldering knot of sage, flickering lights, and what looked to be aboriginal-inspired artwork created a sensory experience that induced a state of rapture -- for Keith at least. He may have oversold it, though, because I was not as moved. I think the sage had gone out. Or I didn't eat as many mushrooms.

There are only two stops on this trip where we’re staying for more than one night. This is one of them. It was a languid pleasure to move a couple of things from my suitcase into a drawer last night, and to leave the hotel this morning without packing up first. After a long day, we have all happily retired to the same rooms where we woke up this morning. Good night!