The Pinnacles National Monument Tour Day Hike California<< >> The Pinnacles National Monument was marked out for a days hike when we visited California USA. We were visiting the US in 2009 as we met our son and daughter in law at Lake Tahoe. They live in Singapore and this is where our son wanted to celebrate his 40th birthday. We were together for a few days but after they headed home we decided to take the opportunity to hire a SUV and see a little more of California. We headed south back towards San Francisco and kept on going to King City. This is where we had booked accommodation, as it was the most convenient place to stay to visit the National Monument. We love to walk wherever we are in the world and this sounded very appealing. It was a very pleasant drive of about 2 hours from King City to the Pinnacles hike . The roads were very quiet and the Pinnacles was easy to find. I love old rocks and find geology fascinationg. It blows my mind to think of the millions of years it has taken for rocks to form and how they become mountains. I am also fascinated by the way the earth moves and splits as it is pulled apart and I was just so excited to be actually on the San Andreas Fault.
The unusual formation of the Pinnacles (it is obvious why they were so named) is due to a volcano eruption 23 million years ago. Half of the volcano was pulled 195 miles to the north as the tectonic plate, which it sits on, shifted. Due to erosion the rocky outcrops are now only about one-third the original height. All this background made it a potentially exciting visit for me but there is more to the Pinnacles tour than rocks. Of course it covers a large area and we were only there for a day but if you could stay longer there are 149 types of birds, 49 mammals, 22 reptiles, 6 amphibians, and numerous types of butterflies and insects including many types of dragonflies (so I have read).
We did see a golden eagle, which was a real treat. We also saw chipmunks, which are quite common and come around when you are picnicking but of course you must never feed them. One thing I do remember very vividly was the wonderful variety of wild flowers. As I started by saying, we stayed in King City so we approached the park from the east. We did a bit of research before we went and realised that there is no through road. You can either stay in somewhere like Soledad and go to the west side or do as we did. We first parked at the Visitor Centre to get our bearings and pay our entrance fee (app $5) then continued further into the park, as we wanted to be near the trails leading into the rock formation. If you just want a day hike as we did there is absolutely no difficulty finding the best place to park and the trail maps and markers are very easy to follow. Apparently summer is the least recommended time to visit, as it gets extremely hot. We were there in April and the temperature was very pleasant but unfortunately it was quite windy and we did have a little rain but I think generally that would always be a good time to visit. It was difficult to decide which trail to take, as our time was limited so we opted for a high trail rather than the caves. There are actually 30 miles of hiking trails, which range from two-mile loop trails to longer higher ones so there is something to suit everybody.
You don’t have to just go for the day of course, there are plenty of campsites. We loved our visit and especially as we had never heard of it before we were planning our trip. So, if you were planning a visit to California I would recommend that you include Pinnacles California in your itinerary.
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