[Pinnacles National Park, California, December 13-17, 2019]. Dallas and I have been attending the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The weather has been wet all week, and unlike past years, we’ve not done much traveling around the city. We are looking forward to hiking in Pinnacles National. I bought some picnicking food at the Trader Joe’s – smoked trout, salami, cheese and granola. In the late afternoon, we took BART down to the San Francisco Airport, rented a car from Alamo, and headed south on Route 101. We stopped for dinner at IGrill Kebabs and Biryani Indian Cuisine Restaurant, off of De La Cruz Boulevard in Santa Clara California, before continuing south to the town of Soledad California, which is a couple hours’ drive further south along Route 101. The traffic was terrible, at least until we passed San Jose. We check into the Soledad Motel 8, which is off of Front Street.

December 14, 2019. The morning is mostly clear, except for a big cloud cap that is draped over the mountains of Pfeiffer Big Sur National Forest, west across the valley in which Soledad is situated. A light breeze is blowing, enough to keep the blades of a nearby wind turbine spinning. I walk over to the nearby Auto Zone and buy a jackknife, for I have forgotten to bring one of these very handy hiking tools. After breakfast, we drive east on Route 146. It is a paved but narrow road that winds up into the hills east of town, past vineyards and pastures. It ends after about ten miles at the western edge of the National Park.

We get our first view of the Pinnacles as we traverse the road, for this is our first visit. Off to the west is a modest hill covered with bare spiky rock formations, some hundreds of feet tall. We park at the Visitor’s Center and pay $30 for a seven-day parking pass. We then hike a short loop trail that starts at the Center. It follows a ridgeline and offers terrific views of the High Peaks – the main hill with the pinnacles. We can make out the hogback structure of the hill, with beds of volcanoclastic rocks dipping down towards the west. Many of the rocks are welded tuff, yellow-brown in color, and full of angular clasts of rhyolite. The hill is part of the western half of Miocene-age stratovolcano, torn in half by slip on the San Andreas fault. The other half, the Neenach Volcanic Field, is on the other side of the fault, and was left almost 200 miles to the south.

We then continue on the Jawbone Trail. It descends off the ridge, switching down through scrubland full of bushes and small trees such as holly. The sky is now partly cloudy with occasional moments of mist and light drizzle. A rainbow forms above the hills to the north. The trail follows a small stream once it reaches the valley floor. The trees here are larger and include Valley Oak and Gray Pine. The ground beneath the Gray Pines is strewn with their very large cones. Beards of olive-green lichen hang off of the branches of the Valley Oak. I sight three Mule Deer, one with a large rack, just as we crossing Route 146. Both the highway and the trail end at the Chaparral Picnic Area.

We then take the Juniper Canyon Trail, which follows a stream that flows out of the High Peaks from the southeast. We visit a little boulder cave, where three or four huge boulders – presumably fallen off the High Peaks – form a crude arch over the stream. The trail is straight and of moderate grade as it follows the stream, but has many steep switchbacks once it begins to climb the hill. The view of the towering cliff faces and the pinnacles are terrific! The pinnacles come in all sizes, from just a few feet high to over a hundred. We find one little thrust fault, with slickenslides, outcropping beside a section of trail where blasting had exposed fresh rock. We supposed that many of the crevices in the rock face were weathered fault traces now hard to identify. We sight our first California Condor, circling high above in the sky. They are similar in shape and mode of flight to a Turkey Vulture, but much larger. We arrive at the ridge crest after about an hour of uphill huffing. This spot sports a bench and a small stone outhouse building and is a major trail intersection. Dallas and I have lunch on the bench, with me having smoked trout and granola. After lunch, we climbed up an informal trail to a nearby viewpoint. It offers an exceptional view of the High Peaks. Finally, we walked about a quarter mile north along the High Peaks trail – enough to take in more of the dramatic scenery.

We then headed back down the Juniper Canyon Trail. The weather has slowly cleared during the course of the day and was now sunny and cool. The many pinnacles were highlighted by the sun, now low in the sky, and by shadows. A birder pointed out to us a condor sitting atop a nearby pinnacle. He loaned us his binoculars, through which we could get a good look at the bird, with its black plumage and red head. It sported a large tag, numbered “0”.

We stopped at the Chaparral Picnic Area for a snack. I polished off one of my cheeses. We then hiked the Jawbone Trail back to the Visitor’s Center. There, Dallas watched a video about the Park’s wildlife, saying that the cinematography was excellent. We then drove back to Soledad, having been on the trails for about five hours.

Back in Soledad, we bought some supplies at the Foods Co. supermarket and had dinner at the Mariscos Puerto Angel Restaurant, both of which are in a strip mall off of Front Street in the southern part of town.

December 15, 2019. The weather in Soledad is clearer than it was yesterday. The sun is lighting up brilliantly the red flowers of the Bougainvilleas bushes around the motel. The green leaves of the Prickly Pear Cactus are edged in yellow-orange from the morning sun.

We drive to the Chaparral Picnic Area and take the Juniper Canyon Trail again up onto the ridge. The sun is bright today, yet low in the sky, making all the vegetation glow. The scrubland area around the Picnic Area has bushes topped in burnt-red seed pods and a nearby marsh has yellow-leafed willow. Dallas finds a few California Buckeye seedpods near a stream; their large nuts is reminiscent of a Horse Chestnut. Toyon bushes, with bright red berries reminiscent of Holly decorate the higher elevations. Yesterday, while watching the video, Dallas learned that the endangered Red -Legged Frog inhabits the park. We keep an eye out for it whenever we are near water. Alas, we spot none.

After a brief rest at the bench, we continue east, taking the Bear Gulch Trail down off the ridge. It switches down through very steep terrain, past many pinnacles, and has two short tunnels. It then follows a gently-sloping ridge that affords terrific views in all directions, including back up onto the high peaks. We transferred to the Rim Trail before we reached the valley floor. It takes us to Bear Gulch Reservoir, a small and narrow impoundment, nestled between steep terrain at the head of the valley and held back by a dam of large, square-cut stones. After admiring the blue water, followed the exit stream into Bear Gulch Cave.

Like the small cave we visited yesterday, Bear Gulch Cave is formed by huge boulders that fell from the cliffs and lodged in the canyon, roofing over the narrow bottom part. A trail leads from the reservoir, down a steep narrow staircase (but with handrails) down into the cave, and then winds through it, sometimes following a straight and flat path beside the stream, and sometimes steeply descending via stairs through crevasses between the boulders. We searched for bats, for they are said to hibernate in the cave, shining out flashlights onto the rocks above but sighting none. After a few minutes we reached the exit. We continued to follow the stream, though woods of oak and pine, until we reached the picnic area at Pinnacles Road. We ate lunch there; I had smoked trout and part of a salami. A Steller's Jay, with its dark blue plumage and crest, watched us as we ate.

We then backtracked a little until we could join the Bear Gulch Trail, and take it back over the mountain. We took one little detour to an east-facing overlook that offers a nice view of the surrounding hills. Two condors flew above us, way up high, working updrafts at the ridge crest. We paused for a rest at the ridge crest bench. As we were talking, a condor soared right past us, no more then ten feet above the ground and twenty feet away from us, horizontally. Dallas remarked that it was the closest she had ever been to one. This record held for only seconds, for moments later a second condor soared by at only half the distance. We could clearly see its red head and the white markings on the underside of its otherwise black wings.

We took the Juniper Canyon Trail down off the mountain and back to the Chaparral Picnic Area. The bright afternoon sun lit up all the pinnacles spectacularly. We could spot the tiny specs of two condors above the High Peaks from the Picnic Area – possibly the same two we had encountered earlier. We had a snack and then drove back to Soledad. About six hours on the trail.

We had dinner at the Windmill Restaurant, off of Front Street in Soledad, before turning in for the night.

December 16, 2019. The morning is clear in Soledad and the temperature is 38 degrees Fahrenheit. We have breakfast, pack up, check out of the hotel and head back to the Park for one last hike. The area around the Chaparral Picnic Area is covered with frost. Grasses and bushes are white with it, especially in shaded areas where it has not yet encountered the sun’s rays.

We take the Balconies Trail east through the canyon that follows a little stream between the High Peaks on the south and Balconies Mountain to the north. Balconies Mountain is in sunlight, but most of the valley and the cliffs on the south side of the valley are in deep shade. Once past the first intersection with the Balconies Cave Trail, the Balconies trail switches up onto the flank of Balconies Mountain, hugging the top of the sloping land beneath the shear upper cliff. This section of trail offers excellent view of the canyon walls and hills to the east, but not of High Peaks. This area too had many pinnacles, though perhaps fewer than the High Peaks. The trail descended back to stream level, where it intersected the Balconies Cave Trail. We took the trail upstream to the cave entrance, first stepping from stone-to-stone along the stream, then passing through a metal gate into a large cavern, and then following a low and winding route thorough smaller grottos. Unfortunately, we could not find our way through, and wound up completing a circle – twice! We were chagrinned, for the route was marked by pained arrows, yet, somehow, we keep missing a turn. We decided to backtrack to the upstream entrance of the cave. So, we huffed out way up back over the Balconies Trail.

The section of the Balconies Cave Trail upstream of the cave is very pretty, with many tall trees growing beside the stream. The cave entrance was easy to find, though a bit of a squeeze, at least for me, for I was wearing a backpack. We traverse about half of the cave – still no bats – until we came to a pit with a crude stone staircase with no handrail. Dallas, on account of her sore shoulder, decided not to risk the descent, and turned back, saying she would wait for me at the trail intersection. I pressed on, descending several of the staircases and one flat section. Unexpectedly as I turned a corner, I discovered that I was in the large cavern that Dallas and I had reached from the other end. The section of cave that I traversed solo could not have been more than one hundred yards long! Once again, I huffed out way up back over the Balconies Trail, singing the Disney dwarves’ song, “Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's home from work we go” as I hiked. I hoped Dallas would hear me (which indeed she did).

A short while later, we were back at the Chaparral Picnic Area. We ate lunch there, with me having salami and cheese. A Western Scrub Jay watched us from a bus. It darted over once when Dallas was inattentive and stole a piece of her gorp. About three and a half hours on the trail.

We drove back to Soledad and then took Route 101 back north, checking into the Redwood City Motel 6, which is actually in Belmont California off the Marine Parkway exit. We had dinner at the Peacock's Koriander Indian Cuisine Restaurant, off of Masonic Way in Belmont California.

December 17, 2019. We checked out of the hotel at 5:30AM, so as to be able to return the rental car and make a morning flights back to New York (for Dallas and I were traveling separately). Unfortunately, my flight was delayed due to snowy weather back east, and I did not get to Newark until 11:45PM.