Chalone Peak Trail (Pinnacles National Park, CA)

Rising to 3,304 feet, Chalone Peak is the highest point in California’s Pinnacles National Park and a worthy challenge for peak-baggers who seek to brave the exposed sun and 2,000 feet in elevation gain to reach the summit. The Chalone Peak Trail juts off from the end of Bear Gulch Cave in the eastern section …

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Bear Gulch Cave – Rim Trail Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)

Sporting one of California’s finest talus caves and shoreline access to a picturesque, rock-hewn reservoir, the Bear Gulch Cave Trail is one of the most popular hikes in Pinnacles National Park. Here a jumble of boulders, so large and tightly-packed that it blankets the ground with darkness, forms subterranean passages home to a resident colony …

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Condor Gulch – High Peaks Trail Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)

Originally the work of volcanoes 23 million years ago, the rocks of today’s Pinnacles National Park were moved, upended, chiseled, and weathered by water, wind, and the infamous temper of the San Andreas Fault in central California. The result is a wild paradise of formations, boulders, spires, and talus caves, less than a two-hour’s drive …

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