Pinnacles is awesome, but not in the summer

In recent news, a bill passed in the House declaring the Pinnacles National Monument the United States’ 59^th national park. The Pinnacles, declared a national monument by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, must now have the bill go to the senate and be signed by President Obama before it can receive that status and national attention. This news, as well as that fact that August’s picture of the month in my California Nature 2012 calendar is Pinnacles, urged me to visit in the dead of summer. You would think I would have learned my lesson in the desert. But I did not.

I had visited the area lots of time throughout my youth and adulthood. As a kid, I had gone with my parents and “got lost.” Our 2 mile hike ended up being much longer. 15 years later, my mother and I made a similar mistake. We ran out of water and mom began to “see spots.” Very scary.

But overall there have been more positive experiences there than negative. I have taken amazing night hikes with a group of friends, explored the caves, and even seen a condor up close. The Pinnacles is a unique park in Monterey County that showcases a much different landscape of ancient volcanic fields and canyons. So I am excited to tell people who have not been there, especially locals like my coworker Sonia. So we drove out there in the early afternoon.

When I left Salinas, it was no hotter than 60. A drizzly, sweatshirt, day.

Even when we took the South Eastern drive into Soledad, the temperatures didn’t get any higher than low 70’s.

But when we parked our car at the trail parking lot, my temperature gauge read 96 degrees. And just like video at the Visitor’s Center stated, “The Pinnacles becomes a desert in the summer.” Despite this, we trekked off to take the High Peaks Trail. After a quarter of a miles, the flat trail turns into a series of switchbacks. The heat seemed to climb 5 more degrees and something made me nauseous. I felt like I may throw up my Pho breakfast. We probably hadn’t hiked a full half mile before I got very dizzy and started to see spots. After some “hike, hike, break, hike, hike, break” routines and my desperate attempt to fill my stomach with water, I suggested we take a flatter hike through the caves instead. So we climbed down slowly. We only passed one other hike, a 70-something year old man who seemed to be unphased by the heat despite his long clothing and cool hiking sticks.

So, I recovered from my “heat wimp” attack by checking out the new visitor’s center, then took the Bear Gulch Cave trail. Now flashlights were required to explore the cave, and this isn’t an unnecessary precaution. But… if you happen to a keychain flashlight, a book lamp, and iphone flashlight app… it may be enough.

It should be a law that all Monterey County residents visit the Pinnacles. Except in the summer.

-N