Posts Tagged With: Condors

Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles National Park and Big Sur coastal area,Wednesday March 1

Well today, March 3, we are back into territory that has WiFi and cell coverage. Weather the last three days has been sunny although still cool, and we have made the best of it. It turns rainy again beginning tomorrow so the next few blogs covering the past three days will have some wonderful scenery pics with sunny skies.

Pinnacles National Park was our sole focal point for Wednesday. Pinnacles was declared a national monument in 1908 and a national park in 2013. Much of its 26,000 acres are declared wilderness and not likely to see us walking and hiking in those less explored areas. Many Californians come here to go rock climbing. The geology of this park is tied into plate tectonics, the San Andreas fault, and erosion. Movement of the earth’s plates has made part of the volcanic field that created the Pinnacles area to be located 195 miles southeast of here by Los Angeles. There is no road going through the park either north-south or east-west.

We concentrated our time on the east side of the park where the bookstore is; the visitor center has been closed for a while. Actually, many of the park trails are closed, some due to the January storms, some due to flooding and fires dating back to 2021. We took three trails, turning back when the trail was closed or when our legs were tired from climbing up steep and rocky paths. Parts of the park like the reservoir, the caves, and high prairies were not areas we were able to visit.However,..

Condors

CONDORS!!. This was our first verifiable sighting of the California condor. In 1987 the last wild condors were removed to a breeding program at the Los Angeles Zoo and have been slowly reintroduced into the wild. It is estimated there are over 300 condors in the wild at five various locations. Pinnacles is one of the five. The volunteer at the bookstore gave us a quick tutorial on how to positively identify the condor and not confuse it with a turkey vulture. Flying as high and fast as it does, the tips were invaluable.

On our second trail, we had only traveled several hundred feet up the trail when we spotted several raptors in the air. One came close enough to us for positive identification. As we climbed farther and higher, we saw a total of six condors circling in the sky, riding the air currents, and, from our perspective, just having a good time circling around. Breeding pairs are sitting on the one egg they laid which takes two months to hatch, about twice as long as bald eagle eggs. We did not see any nests but they would have been located higher than we were able to climb.

This sighting of multiple condors was a great experience. We had dared not get our expectations high, sightings of wild animals is so unpredictable. Seeing the six made it an easier decision to acknowledge our tired legs and return to the car.

Driving to Pinnacles National Park

But Wednesday had other positive experiences also. We left our lodging in Salinas and drove down new roads seeing new vistas. The topography and vegetation along the road were a surprise to us. Yes, California is a big state but saying that and understanding the variety of landscapes is different. It may have helped that the past two months have been wet; the greenery was all around us and in varying hues.

Pinnacles was not crowded today. On weekends, natives from Los Angeles and from San Francisco come here to explore nature and the wild side. Parking then is at a premium. Our first hike got us to experience the jagged cliffs and tumbled boulders that create unique caves, tunnels and rock formations. The cliffs rose pointedly into the sky, with the blue backdrop, it created a picturesque sight. Eventually the hike ran into the water we had been warned about. Rather than hiking through water, we turned around and began a second hike, the one that showcased the condors.

Our first hike along Moses Spring Trail at Pinnacles National Park

Our third hike was on flat land along a creek. After a while, it was boring compared to the first two. We called it a day for Pinnacles, excited for seeing the condors and for viewing the mountain peaks.

It took us two hours to reach the Big Sur Lodge in Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. This area is the southern edge of the growing range for coastal redwoods. This park honors those trees, not the raging surf of the ocean-which we can not see from the park housing. The forest and the Big Sur River are the center points. Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park and the neighboring parks of Andrew Molera State Park and Julia Pfeifer Burns State Park have trails that lead to the ocean-but all were closed due to storm damage. We had a cabin here, with a skylight that allowed the moon to shine in during the night. It can not be called fancy but was pleasant and comfortable. It was too late in the day for more hiking so we had a nice dinner at a restaurant three miles down CA 1, the coastal highway. We had expected the lodge restaurant to be open from 8 to 8. Somehow their website had not been updated.

Dinner in Big Sur CA

CA 1 is the highway that hugs the Pacific coast-and not at the beach level. Chris got great views of the coast, waves, rocks, and mountains. I got great views of the road, keeping my eyes away from the drop offs. We did stop for a few pictures, but realized we had more time over the next few days to take more. In several areas, road work was ongoing and resulted in single lane traffic. It appeared that most of this was scheduled repairs. However, about 25 miles past Big Sur, the highway was closed completely due to damage from the atmospheric rivers of rain that California has experienced since January 1. Portions of the coastal highway are lined by forests that had been burned by previous wild fires; the 2023 rains created mudslides that wreaked havoc on the highway. Luckily for us, it was farther south than our lodging.

Driving along CA Highway 1

Ed and Chris, Monterey CA Friday March 3