Balconies Cave Trail, Pinnacles National Park, March 2022 Talus caves—formed when crashing boulders fall into chasms, flooding the canyon with darkness—are an intriguing feature of central California’s Pinnacles National Park, which boasts two such pseudo-karst caverns. The most popular of the two is Bear Gulch Cave, most easily accessible from the east side of the …
Continue reading Balconies Cliffs – Balconies Cave Trail Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)
High Peaks Trail, Pinnacles National Park, March 2022 So jagged, sharp, and forbidding are the towering spires of central California’s Pinnacles National Park that there is no road able to bisect it, leaving visitors to drive up to the base of the breccia wonderland—and then hike the rest. The High Peaks area, easily the centerpiece …
Continue reading Juniper Canyon Trail to High Peaks Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)
Fremont Peak, one of the highest in the Gabilan Range south of the Bay Area, takes its name from the 19th century explorer, military officer, senator, and presidential candidate John C. Fremont, whose survey expedition passed through the area in 1846. Facing objections from the Mexican authorities who controlled the area at the time, then-Captain …
Continue reading Fremont Peak Trail (Fremont Peak State 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 …
Continue reading Chalone Peak Trail (Pinnacles National Park, CA)
Every national park has one: a trail that, despite lacking any particularly notable beauty, exists seemingly to be hiked only by those seeking the satisfaction of completing every trail in the park. In Capitol Reef National Park, a former focus of this blog, it is the much-maligned Old Wagon Trail. In Pinnacles National Park, it …
Continue reading South Wilderness Trail (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 …
Continue reading Bear Gulch Cave – Rim 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 …
Continue reading Condor Gulch – High Peaks Trail Loop (Pinnacles National Park, CA)
Live and Let Hike 