Pinnacles National Park isn't the most well-known of National Parks. To be honest, we hadn't even heard of it until we'd moved 2 hours away from it! We added it to our California Bucket List and kind of forgot about it...
Until we had been stuck at home for months thanks to COVID and were searching for things to do that is! Once we knew the park had reopened, we decided to make a day trip out of it.
Only the West Entrance was open to car traffic, so we drove in and parked at the start of the Juniper Canyons Trail. This hit up with High Peaks Trail, which is the most epic part of the park (or so we've been told).
Pinnacles National Park was formed 23 million years ago when multiple volcanoes erupted, flowed, and slid to form this unique landscape. The pinnacles themselves are eroded leftovers from these volcanos!
Once we hiked up and back down the peaks, we got the chance to hike up to see the California Condors at Condor Gulch Overlook. Condors are another reason why this park is famous! We saw about 10 of them flying around the peaks.
We clocked in at over 12 miles and 117 floors that day - and wow, we definitely didn't expect to be quite so ambitious! The only downside to this beautiful park is that there is no shade to be found. Luckily we visited when it was around 70 degrees, but it can get into the 90s in the summer and that might be a bit unbearable!
Also, sadly, we didn't get to explore the caves in the park as they are closed to protect the bats from mid-May to mid-July (but maybe longer due to COVID), but we've heard those are great as well.
Up Next: With the international travel situation in flux, we made the hard decision to cancel our upcoming trip to Scotland planned for August. We'll be taking a road trip to Oregon with the pup instead, so we're pretty pumped about that!
