Pinnacles Hike

We decided to do a hike at Pinnacles the last day of our Christmas vacation. The problem was that in our hurry to get out the door, Dave got a big laceration on the top of his head from a sharp light fixture in our storage area. It was long and deep and needed stitches. We knew that if he went to urgent care, he'd be there forever, and we wouldn't have enough time to do the hike before dark. 

So I stitched him! Six stitches! I haven't done that in over 15 years, but it came back to me pretty quick. Luckily we were prepared with all the necessary supplies, including Lidocaine to numb it up. Then he threw on a hat, took some Ibuprofen, and we were on our way! He's a rock star! (Spencer took these pics - he was my assistant, which he thought was just totally awesome).

We went to Pinnacles a couple years ago during spring break and hiked one side of the mountain. This time we parked on the other side of the park and hiked the other side (both hikes end up at the same peak). There were lots of great caves to explore, and everyone was excited to use their headlamps they got for Christmas!

It was a chilly day, which was perfect for hiking. It gets way too hot there for most of the year, so winter is the time to go!

This place is just awesome, and there's nothing else like it around here. It would have been fun to see it form millions of years ago, when these huge boulders were being thrown around from earthquakes and volcanoes.

There were lots of hikers from the parking lot to this reservoir. But that's as far as most people went, and we didn't see many other hikes from this point on.

One thing I like about this hike is that the scenery is constantly changing. It never gets boring or monotonous!

The late afternoon lighting was beautiful!

There are just random rocks and boulders all over the place.

There was a steep incline at the end (not too bad) with awesome 360 degree views from the top.

We got up there pretty quick. These kids are good hikers! I was usually the one in the back with no kid to blame for my slowness. The landscape was so beautiful that I just had to stop and snap pictures along the way. 

After a quick snack break, we headed back down.

More crowds at the reservoir. They didn't know what they were missing by not going up to the top!

Back through the caves...

I don't know why we had a bathrobe on us, but it helped keep Chloe warm! 

My little family of spelunkers, although we weren't in pitch dark for very long and there was no need to army crawl. These are my kind of caves!