National Parks - My New Obsession

While I am still going to continue chipping away on my 500 mile goal on the Arizona Trail (my fourth out of a 500 on 5 National Trails goal) I am also now enthralled with National Parks. This all started when my friend, Heidi, gave me a water bottle that had all the parks on it, along with colorful stickers to apply from each that you've visited. 

I'm sure this is connected to the deep psychological childhood need to get all the gold stars on your chart; whoever came up with that master manipulative tool was a genius. Though I am super grateful for this side goal, because it really is such an interesting and educational ambition...as well as something you can continue to work on as you get older and maybe are not as inspired to do difficult backpacks.

Since getting my "gold star park chart" I have put on a Glacier sticker, a Crater Lake sticker, and a Saguaro sticker. (Besides the ones I initially put on from previous years - like the Grand Canyon.) And now with my latest birthday/father's day California road trip, I'll be putting FOUR more stickers on!!  I'll do these posts separately, starting with our first stop at Pinnacles National Park. 

This park is only an hour and half drive from Monterey Regional Airport, so that is where I arranged Ken to fly in. Because renting a car is so expensive, I decided to drive the 16 hours there over two days. I kind of like driving...though having the AC break on me did make this adventure a bit more challenging than I expected. 

My car sleeping game needs improving

By the time we rolled into the park at around 8 pm, my brain was pretty fried. So don't blame me for forgetting to close the bear locker all the way. Thankfully I had only put the snacks for the car ride in there; but those two midnight raiding raccoons were INTO that bag of chips and M&M's!! 

A quick stop at the beach in Monterey after pick up

I'm certain I'm not the only one to fail to secure their food properly, because those beasts had to be 70 pounds each. They were honestly terrifying. And though I did finally get them to saunter off by throwing my shoes at them, I had nightmares about them ganging up on us all night.

I'm not going to go into great detail about our stay here; I will instead just give my "things to know" list below, along with a breakdown of the hikes we did here. Hopefully you'll find the info helpful if you want to start your own gold star chart. Happy "make new goals, but keep the old" trails!

Things to Know About Pinnacles National Park:

1) The pool doesn't open until 11 am on June 13th. (The day we were checking out of course.) And they won't open it early, even if it is your birthday and you beg. 

We did jump in right before we left...first ones in!!

2) There are many camping spots that are totally exposed and look like they would be miserable if you were tent camping, but we loved our 19A spot which was very private and well shaded.

3) There is a filtered water dispenser on the outside of the bathrooms which is not obvious. 

4) Showers are free! But they do ask you do keep them to 5 minutes. 

5) Last but not least - obviously, be sure to secure your food properly. Those raccoons are no joke.  

Hikes:

1) I stopped at the Shasta-Trinity National Forest on the drive down (not a National Park, wah) to do an easy 4 mile hike called McCloud Waterfalls. You could pretty much drive to each of the three falls, but the hike is really enjoyable with only about 300 ft of elevation gain.

The middle one is the best

 

2) Condor Gulch Trail to High Peaks Trail Loop is just a few minutes drive from the campground and is a combo of Condor Gulch/High Peaks/Bear Gulch. Alltrails has this at 5.3 miles and 1.6 K elevation, but it has to be longer - it definitely felt closer to 6 miles at least. Lots of intersecting trails; I highly recommend having a good map or navigational app or you could end up at the West Entrance of the park, which would really be a pain as there is no through road between the two entrances and it would be a long hitch to get back to camp. Also HIGHLY recommend doing this CW, unless you love an endless slog up instead of a gentle grade down. Super fun trail overall, though I was really glad I had my hiking umbrella to help with the heat.

3) Moses Spring Rim Trail Loop is actually just a smaller version of the other loop, which we didn't realize until we got to the parking lot. Though there is a short section that was new to us, and because we did it CCW, it felt different. Plus it was nice to visit the Bear Gulch Reservoir a second time because it is so beautiful and we didn't explore very long there the first time. This lollipop loop is only 2 miles with about 400 feet in gain.

4) Just looking for something to kill the time, we did a "trail" from the visitor center to the Bacon Ranch, which is really just a service road. If you are wondering where the information about the history of the ranch is, you'll find it posted on the side of the visitor center. At less than a mile, this is more like a little stroll, but you will find the world's largest tree burl at the end.  

Okay not literally the world's biggest...but it's big! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if you want to watch a full video compilation of the whole trip, you can find it on my YouTube.