In our ongoing effort to get caught up with our own lives we are doing these little retrospective blogs of some of the places we had seen before we began “blogging” on a regular basis and after we returned to our home state to become more ‘grounded’. So here is one about a magical place that we explored on our way home in February 2009, Pinnacles National Monument, California. Located east of the Salinas Valley in central California, these rock spires, crags, caves and massive monoliths demonstrate how millions of years of erosion, faulting and tectonic plate movement can twist and shape a landscape. This region is part of an ancient volcano, a portion of which is now located 195 miles southeast!
How did this happen? Thank the millions of years of activity on the San Andreas Fault.
Pinnacles NM was proclaimed a National Monument in 1908 and now encompasses 26,000 acres of protected plants, animals and unique geologic features. It is a critical nesting habitat for the nearly extinct California condor, one of the largest birds in North America. There are over 400 species of bees here, the largest diversity of bees in one place in the country.
Well I guess you get the picture, so here are some more pictures to set the tone of this unusual and otherworldly place.
Highway 146 to the Monument
Pinnacles Campground
Bear Gulch Cave Trail
Bear Gulch Reservoir
Pinnacles, Peaks and Rocks
....and critters
