While we were at Williams Hill, we thoroughly researched Pinnacles National Park. We knew that the park has a west entrance and an east entrance, and to get from one to the other you have to drive around since no roads run through the park. We knew that you have to go through King City to get to either entrance, but the west entrance is slightly closer, although the campground, where we had booked one night, is near the east entrance. On Tuesday morning we left Williams Hill and stopped in King City to restock our groceries, then went to the west side since our plan was to head north the next day after camping in the park and we didn’t want to have to backtrack to see the west side of the park.
All went as planned, except that the last four or five miles of the road accessing the Visitor Center on the west side of the park is a steep and windy single lane road. It’s just about wide enough for two pickup truck sized vehicles to pass, but it has neither a middle line nor shoulders. We had our fingers crossed for the entire ride that we wouldn’t meet anything as big as we are, and we didn’t, although we did pass a couple of normal sized passenger cars without incident. When we got to the gate, they informed us that they don’t recommend RVs to travel the road, and gave us the park brochure that said as much. Did I already say that we had thoroughly researched the park? Nothing on anything we found mentioned that larger vehicles weren’t recommended, and the signs at the civilized end of the road only stated that semis with more than 30’ between the king pin and the rear axle should avoid the road. Since our entire vehicle is less than 30’, we didn’t even worry about it and were therefore more than a little surprised. When we pulled into the parking lot we found that they do have two oversized vehicle parking spaces, and the other was already occupied by an RV larger than we are whose driver told us that he had also been surprised. Because we were already there, we decided to talk to the rangers in the Visitor Center and see what we could see on that side of the park. We ended up going on a short hike to get a good view of the high peaks of the Pinnacles because the ranger told us that the parking lots near the trail heads for the trails on that side of the park wouldn’t accommodate our vehicle, even if we chose to drive another mile or two down the one-lane road.
All went as planned, except that the last four or five miles of the road accessing the Visitor Center on the west side of the park is a steep and windy single lane road. It’s just about wide enough for two pickup truck sized vehicles to pass, but it has neither a middle line nor shoulders. We had our fingers crossed for the entire ride that we wouldn’t meet anything as big as we are, and we didn’t, although we did pass a couple of normal sized passenger cars without incident. When we got to the gate, they informed us that they don’t recommend RVs to travel the road, and gave us the park brochure that said as much. Did I already say that we had thoroughly researched the park? Nothing on anything we found mentioned that larger vehicles weren’t recommended, and the signs at the civilized end of the road only stated that semis with more than 30’ between the king pin and the rear axle should avoid the road. Since our entire vehicle is less than 30’, we didn’t even worry about it and were therefore more than a little surprised. When we pulled into the parking lot we found that they do have two oversized vehicle parking spaces, and the other was already occupied by an RV larger than we are whose driver told us that he had also been surprised. Because we were already there, we decided to talk to the rangers in the Visitor Center and see what we could see on that side of the park. We ended up going on a short hike to get a good view of the high peaks of the Pinnacles because the ranger told us that the parking lots near the trail heads for the trails on that side of the park wouldn’t accommodate our vehicle, even if we chose to drive another mile or two down the one-lane road.
After our short hike, we got back in the truck and found out that while the campground was only 4.5 miles away as the crow flies, it was 55 miles and about 1.75 hours away by roads, going back through King City. We took a deep breath and went back out the single lane road, where we met another RV coming into the park, but fortunately at a spot where the road was wide enough for each of us to hug the edge and pass. We reached the campground around 5pm, and found it crawling with people and screaming children. It’s laid out with distinct campsites around a few loop roads, but the campsites are very close together and not very big, and we could clearly hear our neighbors’ conversations when we were outside the camper, even over the screaming children. We took the dogs for a walk around the campground, had dinner, and went to bed, not very impressed with this National Park.
The next morning, we planned to do a few camper chores requiring water and dumpsters before parking in the open lot for the day so we could hike the west side of the park. We found a spigot with threading so we could fill our freshwater tank, got rid of the garbage we’d been collecting, and parked in the wide open lot behind the camp headquarters. The trailhead for the trails we wanted to hike was about 2.5 miles from the campground, so we took the scooter off the back of the camper and used that to get to the Bear Gulch trailhead. We were glad we hadn’t tried to drive the truck there, since all of the parking was filled with RVs, which barely fit, and I believe that if we had decided to drive the truck, we probably would have abandoned the idea of hiking in the park. That would have been a big mistake, because once we started on the hike, we found that it is one of the nicest National Parks hikes we’ve taken.
The next morning, we planned to do a few camper chores requiring water and dumpsters before parking in the open lot for the day so we could hike the west side of the park. We found a spigot with threading so we could fill our freshwater tank, got rid of the garbage we’d been collecting, and parked in the wide open lot behind the camp headquarters. The trailhead for the trails we wanted to hike was about 2.5 miles from the campground, so we took the scooter off the back of the camper and used that to get to the Bear Gulch trailhead. We were glad we hadn’t tried to drive the truck there, since all of the parking was filled with RVs, which barely fit, and I believe that if we had decided to drive the truck, we probably would have abandoned the idea of hiking in the park. That would have been a big mistake, because once we started on the hike, we found that it is one of the nicest National Parks hikes we’ve taken.
The hike was fun because we put together a loop hike which went through many of the features of the park. The first part of the hike was through the Bear Gulch Cave, which involved some rock climbing, some slithering through holes, and some steps which gave us good views of waterfalls in the cave.
We emerged from the cave on the shore of the Bear Gulch Reservoir.
From the Bear Gulch Reservoir, we took the Rim Trail to the High Peaks Trail. This trail took us to the very top of the peaks, but it was fairly wide with good footing, and even though we ended the day having climbed over 2000 feet, the hike up was gradual enough that it wasn’t exhausting.
We took the Tunnel Trail down on the other side of the peaks. The trail is so named because a tunnel goes about 100 feet through the rocks where it wasn’t possible to create a trail around the rocks.
We made our way back to the Bear Gulch trailhead on the Condor Gulch trail. I don’t think we saw any condors, although we did see large black birds soaring which I suspect were just regular old vultures. The entire loop was about 6.5 miles, and it was a great hike because we saw so many different things, and while we knew we were getting good exercise, we never felt overfaced with technical rock climbing or dangerous footing.
After the hike, we scootered back to the truck, packed up, and headed for the Hollister Hills SVRA (State Vehicle Recreation Area), another government run OHV park with free (after you get a permit) campgrounds. We were within a couple of miles of the park entrance when we were stopped by a road construction crew, directly in front of a large sign stating that the park was closed. Tom got out and talked to the flag man, who informed Tom that the roads had washed out in the recent floods, and the gates were closed because the park is entirely inaccessible, with no known date for reopening. We had noticed that the San Benito County Fairgrounds which we had passed about 15 miles back had an “Overnight RV Parking” sign out front, so we retraced our steps and stopped there. We got there just after the office manager had left for the day, but another RVer parked there told us to just park, and talk to them in the morning. Hookups were available, but we didn’t use them since we had left the National Park campground with the intention to boondock until after Easter weekend. In the morning, we waited for the office manager, who told us that parking was free without hookups and wished us well on our travels.
While at the fairgrounds, we looked for someplace to go between where we were and Oakland/San Francisco. We couldn’t find any government land that allowed camping, and all of the state and county parks were booked for the holiday weekend. We could have stayed at an RV park, but those are really pricy and we don’t really like them because they are so crowded. We also could have stayed at the fairground, but that was just a parking lot on a main road with lots of loud traffic. So, we made the decision to head back to Williams Hill and sit tight for the weekend, and head for Oakland and San Francisco on Monday. Site 7, which was the site at the end where we had been previously had campers in it, so we pulled into one of the sunset sites, which I really like. We wordled with a view last night, and used the very good cell reception to make reservations at one of the expensive RV parks near San Francisco so we can spend two nights there and take the ferry into San Francisco on Tuesday.
