Hiking at Pinnacles National Park // Paicines, CA

A couple of weekends ago, my hubby and I wanted to go hiking at a new spot. At first we were looking to head towards San Fran, but once we saw what the traffic was looking like that morning, we decided against it. Instead, we went the opposite direction and journeyed south to Pinnacles National Park. The park is named after the sky-pointed spires you can find all over that are the eroded leftovers of an extinct volcano.

After driving through windy countryside roads for about an hour and arriving at the park, we paid the entrance fee at the visitor center and planned out our route. We decided to hike the Condor Gulch Trail, about a 5 1/2 mile loop with 1,300+ feet in elevation change.

The weather was pretty mild at home, and was definitely warmer in Paicines where the park is located. I had brought 4 water bottles, leaving 1 in the car and bringing 3 in our backpack. A lot of the time I’ll wear a Camelbak to keep me hydrated, but for some reason this time I left it home….which I totally regretted 2 hours into the hike when we were already running out of water. Apparently we were thirsty hikers that day!

The pinnacles were really a neat sight to see, and the trail had a lot of fun rocks and spots for photo ops – and of course a few yoga poses.

Is it just me, or does the above pinnacle look like a frowning face?!

During one section of the hike there are some funky steps to climb up and down. It’s pretty neat to think about how they carved out the trails and little stepping spots into the mountain.

We saw a big family of people, including men, women, teens, some very small children, and even a woman with a baby strapped to her on the hike. They were all wearing regular clothes, no one had water, and when we passed them, one of the guys asked if we were close to the bottom. We were actually at the peak of the mountain and they were only about half way done with the loop. All I could think was YIKES because this hike is no leisurely stroll!

Once we hit the top, we stopped for a little refuel: bars and the little remaining water we had.

It was a little scary running out of water because we knew we had a ways to go and the temperature was climbing more as the afternoon wore on. Near the top of the trail there’s a restroom area, which we were hoping would have a water fountain, but no such luck. We just kept on going until we got back down to the bottom, and for once I was actually happy to see an icky water fountain!

We also wanted to hike a trail called the Bear Gulch Reservoir, mostly because it’s partly a cave trail, which seemed like an awesome thing to check out. However, we were both feeling tired by the time we got to the point where we’d veer off for the caves, so we decided against it. We were both smoked by the workout, plus my hubby is insane and wore a weighted vest for the hike! With a rest at the top, the loop took us almost 3 1/2 hours to complete.

I really enjoyed hiking at Pinnacles, and would love to get back there to see the cave trail and hike around some other spots. And next time I’m bringing extra water! 😉

Do you pack tons of water for outdoor workouts? Have you ever run out of water on a hike?