Although the most popular National Park’s get all of the press we have found that many of the smaller National Parks can be really fun. That’s partly why I chose to spend a few days in Pinnacles National PArk and as always it did not disappoint.

Unfortunately it was surprisingly hard to book a campsite and I ended up getting a Weds – Fri recommendation, but ultimately was glad I did because we practically had the place to ourselves. But first we had to get there, and like many remote parks it’s not easy.

First of all there are two entrances, but because there is a mountain in the middle the roads don’t connect. The one RV friendly campground is on the east side and the road getting to it is very windy with lots of curves. We did fine in our 40 foot RV but slow speeds were definitely called for turning a 4 hour estimated drive into a 6 hour drive.

It was a beautiful drive though but by the time we got there no one was at the gate and we just drove on in. I was surprised that they charged $30 a day for this park but with our American the Beautiful pass we got in for free. It was a little confusing finding our way to the campground (surprising since there really isn’t that much road, but we made it to our spot that had 30 am electric and one hell of a view. The places was almost empty though and although there was a large youth group camping they were in another designated area so we rarely saw them. The campground also has a swimming pool (another first for us at a National Park) which we didn’t use but saw many people did.

We arrived and got setup in time to see the blue moon and although I didn’t get a great picture of it, the view was spectacular.

The next morning we got up bright and early and went to the ranger station/camp store and asked for advice on hikes. It was still getting pretty hot here, but the volunteer recommend the cave trail which he said was pretty cool and we decided to go very early. Great thing we did because it was practically empty and best of all we were finished by the time the heat started to rise (around 10am).

This hike was one of my all time favorites and even though part of it was in caves, I didn’t feel very claustrophobic because the cave were formed by rocks falling and had some ceiling cracks that let the light in. The trail is pretty rough though so hiking boots are definitely recommended.

I love rocks so I absolutely LOVED it. Yes it was tight in some places but it was also magical and again having the whole place to ourselves was awesome. I would think doing this hike with huge crowds wouldn’t be very fun but we had a blast.

Since we were done so early we decided to drive to the other side of the park, which takes over an hour by the way. The cool thing was the drive was beautiful with tons of farms and vineyards and we had a great lunch at the Windmill Restaurant in Soledad, CA “The Salad Bowl of the World”. They aren’t kidding about that because Soledad has tons of lettuce farms and the most interesting smell. It’s also 20 degrees cooler than the park which was a welcome relief.

One thing I will say is I would NOT recommend going into the east side of the park unless you were in a very small van or Class C. The road was really twisty and steep and goes down to one lane at one point. It also only has a small day use area and the visitors center (at least the day we were there) was closed. There were heat warning signs everywhere, which we took seriously because we saw a rescue copter the day before, but we did walk out and take a few pictures.

The next day we took it easy and didn’t do much of anything but we did enjoy the Juvenile Condors in the tree behind us. They left the next day when the crowds started coming in but there were tons of them Weds and Thursday night. My only concern was Jack becoming a condor snack but we kept him on leash and stayed close to him and took the best pics we could. They were always backlit and in super tall trees so hard to get pics even with the long lens. As a side note those trees had the biggest pine cones I have ever seen in my life and that’s saying something.

It was a great trip even though it wasn’t the best time of year to go and if you can I completely recommend going during the week in off season.

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