May 13, 2021 Thursday Day 9
I took an early morning dip in the hot tub and then we had a little breakfast in the room. Packed up and got started with a full battery by 9:00 am. We were driving the step daughter to the San Jose airport. Along the way we passed through mountains on the winding route 17. We got her to the airport well before her flight departure and then after lots of hugs and some tears, she was returning to France so who knows when we would see her again, we drove south for a rendezvous with Pinnacles National Park. Once we left Santa Clara County the trip was largely along routes 101 and 25. It was rural and agricultural country with a small town every 40 miles or so. The most prominant was Gilroy, which bills itself as the garlic capital of the world and has many garlic themed stores and products, including garlic ice cream. We stopped at Gaeta's restaurant for some ice cream and an adjacent BoA cash withdrawal. I thought about getting gasoline, but the price was over $4.50 a gallon and I thought that I still had enough gasoline to get us to a bigger town with presumably cheaper gas. We ate lunch in Hollister at Saladworks at a strip mall outside of town. The salads were very good.
We continued driving south on route 25, a/k/a Airline Highway, passing a few very small towns, and then just empty land. We turned off on to route 146 to drive several winding and narrow miles to the eastern entrance to the Park. Because the Park is bisected by a rugged 1000 ft ridge running north to south no road goes through the park. The Visitor Center was very small, and was adjacent to a large campground, but it did have a for fee charging station. However we stayed only briefly at the center, so I did not plug in.
Until this trip I was not aware of Pinnacles National Park. It was designated as a national monument in 1908, but did not become a National Park until 2013. There is very little development within the Park, no Inns and no developement outside the park on the eastern side. No hotels, motels, gas stations or restaurants. In the 1930s the CCC built the trails, tunnels and the Bear Gulich Dam. With about 26,000 acres, Pinnacles is the seventh smallest national park. Although the website said the park was so busy, particularly at the eastern end, on weekends and holidays that visitirs are required to ride a shuttle bus into the park. However on this Thursday it was pretty empty. It attracted 233,000 visitors in 2020, ranking 47th among the parks. There is no cellphone service anywhere in the Park.
The wild topagophy of the Pinnacles was formed over millions of years by series of geological events. First the Farallon plate moving eastward subducted under the North American plate. That created the California coastal range. The magna created by the heat of the subduction resulted in volvanos and lava flows. That created the Pinnacles volcanic field, but it was not created around present location. Instead, 23 million years ago it was where Lancaster CA. is presently located. Then the Pacific plate crashed into the North American plate creating a fault line, now the San Andreas fault, that gradually, a few millimeters a year, pushed the Pinnacles northwest to its presnt location. Finally erosion, from weather water and wind created the spire towers that are distintive at Pinnacles. Also, as erosion occurred boulders fell and created the caves in the Park.
This is a park primarily for hikers and climbers. From the Visitor Center we drove on Pinnacles Highway, a gross misnomer, to the Peaks View parking area. A lady hiker flagged us down and told us that she has hiked 17 miles, (it was only 1:00 pm), on the High Peaks trail and asked us to give her a lift to the Manzanita parking area, a mile up the road. We agreed. I parked there and leaving my injured spouse under a grove, I began a hike up the 1 mile Sycamore Trail. It was very dry, hot and the trail ascended 400 ft. However it was a nice walk, with vibrant displays of wildflowers, lots of small mammals, snakes, birds flying overhead and frequent shade. I then passed through a small tunnel.
That took me to the .3 mile Moses Spring trail where as I continued to ascend I took in the views of the many rock formations and took me to Moses Spring. Retracing a few steps I got on the .5 mile Bear Gultch Cave Trail. Unfortunately virtually all of the caves were closed to accomdate the Townsand big ear bats since it is their breeding season.
I walked through some small talus caves (formed by falling boulders) through which small shafts of light slip through, narrow passageways which ran along the creek and up a steep rock staircase until I arrived at the Bear Gulch Resevoir. This is a very pleasent and calming small body of water. Lots of flyingorange bugs. I walked a trail partially around the resevior to take in different views with different lighting.
Rather than return the same way, I headed north on the .4 mile Rim Trail. This took me through lots of giant boulders and provided great views of the gorge. It also provided views of several California condors flying high above, along with some other raptors. The condors weight about 20 lbs and have a windspan of 9.5 ft. Impressive, especially in flight, but not as big as Andy the Andes condor in the SLC aviary. However Andy does not fly anymore. The California condors fly as high as 15,000 ft and can fly as fast as 55 mph on thermal updrafts. They were placed on the endangered species list in the 1960s and have experienced a small revival after an aggresive breeding program in the 1990s. However they are still in danger in part from consuming meat from carsses which have been shot by poisonous lead pellets. They flew so high and fast that it was hard to phograph them.
At the end of the Rim Trail I came to a tee at the Peaks Trail. The choises were turn left for 6 mile trail to the top of the Pinnacles, or right for a short descent back into Bear Gulch and the Sycamore Trail. In the interests of time and my waiting spouse I opted for the left and walked through a very lush trail.
We left the park about 3:00 pm and turned right, going south on routh 25. During the 66 miles to the intersection with route 198 we passed no gas stations and virtually no developement. The map indicated that 198 was a controlled highway, so I though that there would be a gas station along the way. However unbeknowst to me we were entering a completley undeveloped area going through the Diablo Range. This was all white on the map which except for an occasional house, was devoid of any civilization. As the dashboard indicator showed the gas level descending to 20 miles, and then to just red indicting low fuel, we kept climbing and finally descending through the mountains. Theer was no cell phone service and only very rarely did we pass an opposing vehicle. It had been decades since I had run out of gasoline, and that was when I was driving a cab in NYC with a broken gas indicator, but I had visions of being stranded in the middle of no where. Finally we rolled, maybe coasted on fumes, into Coalinga, a nondecript town which began life as a coal loading station for the Southern Pacific Railroad and now is an oil town, where I filled up the tank with very expensive gasoline.
After a few more miles on 198 we transferred on to I-5 going south, and then proceeded east on route 58, through Bakersfield to Barstow, arriving at our motel about 8:00. The Super 8 we stayed at was a dump, even by Super 8 standards. Years before I had stayed there on a trip to LA from SLC, but the place had deteriorated. The Front Office was closed and there was a sign which directed a guest to ring for service, and warned not to knock on the small glass pane.I rang repeatedly without successeven though I saw the clerk inside working on laundry. I finally knocked. She was upset that I knocked, but said the bell was out of order and that due to Covid, the promised breakfast would not be served and the pool was closed. I think that establishment was just trying to save money.
The room was large and clean. Barstow is overflowing with fast food restaurants, but its few sit down restaurants were closing by the time we got back into the car, so we ended up eating at Denny's. I frequently had satisfactory breakfasts there in the past there while working with clients based on Ft. Irwin. It was ok for dinner, I had the "senior" salmon dinner- filling.
Upon returning to the motel I plugged in the car at the adjacent Day's Inn.
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