The first wildlife we saw when we entered the park was a great big...
...jack rabbit.
We stopped at the visitor center to determine which trails would be best to hike. We drove out to the trailhead for the Old Pinnacles Trail but the parking lot was full. We drove back to the visitor center, got on all our hiking gear, and waited for the shuttle to go back to the trailhead. With that little bit of delay, we didn't get started hiking until a little after 11:30. Looks like we will be having our typical late lunch again today! :)
The trail was a easy trail...
...lined with all different colors of wildflowers along much of the trail.
These bush poppies were all closed up (but wait and see what they look like at the end of our hike).
Even the thistles were beautiful.
There were these gorgeous purple flowers with what looked like little blue feathers growing out the top of them.
We had noticed along the road in places before we came into the park and then again along the trail this orange stuff that would cover plants looking like orange silly string.
The orange silly string appears to choke out the plants.
We passed by these huge fat pine cones.
These pine cones were even bigger than the ones we had seen at Hetch Hetchy.
We begin to see some of the rock formations up on the tops of the hills.
We passed by these elegant clarkia...
As we walked through the forest,
we saw a lot of California buckeye trees. Hmmm. I thought only Ohio had buckeyes. :)
After we had been walking about 2 miles, we began to see the pinnacles.
At this point, we could either continue to walk down the trail and go through Bear Cave or we could walk up the Balconies Overlook trail that meets up with the Bear Cave trail on the other side.
We talked with a guy who had just come down the overlook trail. He was talking about how great the hiking was and how he really enjoyed the Bear Cave. He said it got kind of tight in places and you had to stoop or crawl through. He also said you might need a flashlight but that there are usually a lot of people in there with flashlights.
We decided to try the Bear Cave and the trail became narrower the closer we got to the trail.
And then we got to the entrance of the cave.
We walked in and had to climb up and over some rocks.
At this point, there was still quite a bit of light shining through the top of the cave.
After this point, we entered a dark room and couldn't even see where the trail was to go out. We asked someone else in the cave and they showed us where it was. Ken had a head lamp and they loaned us a small flashlight they had and Chuck and I begin to climb up. But then the claustrophobia begin to sit in with me and I realized I was not going to be able to make it. There were a lot of people going through and I told Chuck, Ken and Bonnie to go on and I would go up the overlook trail and meet them on the other side.
They had a lot of fun scrambling through the cave but I enjoyed hiking up the overlook trail in the open sky and fresh air. :)
The scenery and the pinnacles were pretty amazing.
As I came down the other side of the overlook trail,
there was Chuck, Ken and Bonnie coming up! :)
After I met them, we began walking back the way I had come up on the overlook trail but stopped for a few minutes to rest, drink some water, and eat a snack.
As we began our walk back down, we saw this big rock formation on the hill across from us that looked like a big boot.
Except for Ken's heel beginning to hurt, it was a nice hike back to the trailhead. And look at those beautiful bush poppies now. They were all opened up!
We had to wait for the shuttle for about 20 minutes and didn't get back to the parking lot until about 3:30 or 4. So we had another late picnic lunch. But it was a delicious picnic lunch! :)
After we drove back to the campground, this deer greeted us as we entered. :)
A new national park, 5 1/2 miles of hiking, lots of beautiful flowers and a positively wonderful day! How great is that!
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