Day 20 – Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles Peak

The drive south from San Jose to Pinnacles takes you through Gilroy, CA. Gilroy is famous for its garlic and we passed through miles and miles of fields around Gilroy, but we weren’t sure if any were garlic. I think that garlic is more of a spring crop and Gilroy smells distinctly like garlic when the crop is being harvested.

Colorful Rock Formations

Pinnacles is the newest National Park in the system, elevated to that status only in 2013. It is also one of the smaller parks, at least in terms of roads through the park, but it has good hiking and if you are lucky, you can see California Condors. Unfortunately the temperature was going to reach 106 in the park today so we had to scratch our planned hike to try to see the Condors and switch to a more shaded trail which took us to Bear Gulch Caves. This was the first time we went self-guided through a cave where we had to carry our own flashlights, which was actually pretty cool. So we didn't see Condors but the good news is that we didn't see bears in the caves either.

Trail to Bear Gulch Cave

The cave was mostly vertical, had a lot of tight squeezes and one part where I had to crab walk for about 10 feet to get through. Only hit my head once. The flashlight was a big help but some people got by just with cell phone lights.

We are spending the night in Morro Bay and finished the evening by watching the sunset over the Pacific and having a very nice local seafood dinner.