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Pinnacles National Park

The second to newest National Park

By Luke Beard

2 hours away too easy

Pinnacles National Park sounds very dramatic if you read the National Park’s website as I did when researching a camping trip me and my wife were planning.

Some 23 million years ago multiple volcanoes erupted, flowed, and slid to form what would become Pinnacles National Park. What remains is a unique landscape. Travelers journey through chaparral, oak woodlands, and canyon bottoms. Hikers enter rare talus caves and emerge to towering rock spires teeming with life: prairie and peregrine falcons, golden eagles, and the inspiring California condor.

Pinnacles is actually the second newest park (the newest being Katahdin Woods). It’s a quick two hour drive from San Francisco and incredible accessible to those with bodies that don’t mind moderate hiking.

Also a fun fact: It’s actually Tarantula mating season so we saw a bunch of them. I’d never seen any in the wild, they are the chillest of all spiders imo. Below is a bunch of my favorite shots from the weekend.