While it isn’t possible to see all of Pinnacles National Park in one day, it is possible to have a great day enjoying this awesome park! With our goal of seeing the U.S. National Parks, a trip to San Francisco with my mom became an opportunity to see another park. Pinnacles is national park #30 for me!

Google Maps will tell you that this park is only a little over 2 hours from San Francisco. We checked out early from our hotel in San Francisco (before 8 a.m.), but by the time we took a Lyft back to the airport to pick up a rental car, battled traffic getting out of the city, and stopped in Hollister for a quick bite to eat, it was a little after noon before we arrived at the Pinnacles National Park Visitor Center on the East side of the park.

The park is accessible from two entrances — one on the East and one on the West side of the park. The road through the park does NOT connect the two sides! Given our time constraints, we knew it wouldn’t be possible to visit both sides of the park, so we chose the East entrance and a visit to the Bear Gulch Cave and Reservoir.

After a quick stop at the Visitor Center, we took the short drive to the Bear Gulch area. We were lucky to find a parking spot in the small lot next to the trailhead, but more parking was available in the nearby Bear Gulch Day Use Area parking lot. Visiting on a Monday in December turned out to be a great time to see the park without many other visitors.

The trail we chose was a moderate 2.2 mile loop — starting from the parking lot on the Moses Spring Trail, taking the Bear Gulch Cave Trail, stopping by the Bear Gulch Reservoir, then taking the Rim Trail back to a short part of the High Peaks Trail that connects back with the Moses Spring Trail to return to the beginning. (Check the park website for cave status to be sure at least the lower part of the cave trail is open before you go. The upper section of the cave is typically closed to protect a colony of bats.)

We only saw around 10 other people the entire time we were on the trail. For the most part, we had the park to ourselves!

By far the highlight of the trail to me was the experience of hiking through Bear Gulch Cave. This is a talus cave, which was formed when boulders fell from above into narrow chasms and created a cave. There are many opportunities to see huge boulders along the trail.

• 

• 

• 

Fortunately, we’d done enough research and planning that we were prepared with headlamps for the cave. Although it could have been done with a flashlight, the headlamps we ordered from Amazon were hugely helpful!

• 

• 

The trail was a little confusing at one point because you had to climb stairs back to the surface and walk above-ground for a short distance before re-entering the cave and then climbing more stairs up to the reservoir. Although the trail wasn’t too difficult, even for non-hikers like us, in some places it was necessary to balance on rocks to avoid stepping in water, and other places were quite narrow with low ceilings.

• 

• 

The Bear Gulch Reservoir was peaceful and beautiful, and the area offered a nice view of some of the park’s namesake “pinnacles.”

The park is also home to California Condors, saved from near-extinction, and I’m pretty sure we saw a pair of the impressive birds in the distance.

• 

• 

Even with just a short visit, Pinnacles National Park did not disappoint! I’d love to return someday to spend more time seeing other trails as well as exploring the talus cave on the park’s West side.