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The Pinnacles National Monument is a small, very rugged area about
an hour and a half south of where I live. You can find it on a map between Salinas
and King City, CA. Of the 16,265 acres, 12,952 acres are designated as wilderness
(once you actually visit you will wonder why all of it wasn't designated wilderness!).
The monument is known for many things including its rugged terrain, several caves
and some very interesting wildlife. The terrain is volcanic, contrasting with the
smooth and worn surrounding areas. Originally, it was part of a volcanic region
in southern California but broke off and has been drifting north along the famous
California fault lines.
Spire like rock formations range from 500 to 1200 feet in height. Many of these
features are very dark and tend to hold the heat in during the extremely hot summer
days. Looking at the following pictures, you can also see some traces of the ancient
lava flows and layers of folded rock.
Buried in all these wild formations are several small caves. These are home to a
large population of bats. During this trip we did not enter the caves. The nearest
caves to us were closed to help the bat population recover. In the spring of 1998,
there were some strong floods in the area that damaged the caves (not to mention
the roads). To help the bat population recover, the park has restricted people from
entering the bats' homes for now.
In addition to a very wide variety of other plant and animal life, on this trip
we were greeted by an ominous sign warning us that it was tarantula mating season.
The mating season occurs every fall. This area has a lot of the fury little creatures
crawling around after dark anyway. But from what I understand, during this period
even a hiking boot can look very inviting to a tarantula when it has that wild and
crazy urge to reproduce (perhaps we should donate some tiny glasses to help the
little guys pick more suitable mates?). Needless to say, we did not stick around
for the evening hours.
If you plan to visit this area, you should also be aware of the weather. To put
it simply, during the summer it is just plain hot and there
is no shade. During the spring, it can be very wet and the creeks run through the caves, leaving them pretty
much inaccessible. When we went on this hike it was during the month of October.
It still was in the nineties, but the sun was low enough so that there was some
very welcome shade. Also, the lower angle of the sun light really helped bring out
details in the rocks, allowing me to capture the formations in more detail in my
photos.
Below are some of the pictures from this hike with a short comment about each. To
see a larger version of the pictures, just click on any of them and then use your
browser's BACK button to return here.
To learn more about this national monument, you can click on this link to go to
their web sight.
http://www.nps.gov/pinn/
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