While we were exploring Joshua Tree, a nice man told us we had to check out Pinnacles National Park, that it was a beautiful little park too many miss, and we are so glad we went. The two sides are only connected by hiking trails that were beyond our skill set. There is no vehicle access from one side to the other. First, we explored the west entrance, so we could check out Balconies Cave.
The cave itself was a very dark trail winding over, around, and under massive boulders. The rangers weren’t kidding when they said you needed to have flashlights to get through it – once inside, you couldn’t see a thing without them.
One of us is more than somewhat claustrophobic, and she was not super excited to be in there…but fears were faced, she made it through, and the marriage survived. Happily, the trail through the cave is fairly short, and we were soon back in the beautiful sunshine.
We arrived early in the morning, and while the walk to the cave was moderate, our timing enabled us to make the round trip before the real heat of the day kicked in.
One of the highlights of this park is that they are one of the first place where they are reintroducing the California Condors into the wild. We were pretty stoked to see one, since they are still a pretty rare sighting.
We drove around the park to get to the campgrounds on the east side. We were warned that the wildlife we rather aggressive, especially the raccoons. Sure enough, they made their way to our campsite, even climbing trees to get onto our camper. Luckily, all of our food is secured inside, so we didn’t have to worry about raids like those camping in tents did.
The campground had just about everything we could hope for, nice shady trees, a store, swimming pool, showers, and lots of wildlife. If you’re ever in the area, you should spend a couple of days checking out this park.
Traveling Team Fischer 