Rock 'n' Stroll in Pinnacles

PINNACLES NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — I stood across from a fast-food joint in Gorman, looking up at a slope of purplish rock, the remains of an extinct volcano known as the Neenach Formation. It looked as though half the rock had been sheared off, and I wanted to find the rest. Glancing at my watch, I sighed. If only I'd gotten here 23 million years ago. Now I'd have to travel 200 miles northwest to find it.

"We'd better get started," I said to my husband, Ralph.

After a five-hour drive, the rocky spires of Pinnacles National Monument came into view. Geologists say they were once part of the Neenach Formation, and as the Pacific Plate slid along the North American Plate, it carried these rocks to this place on the border of Monterey and San Benito counties.

We had followed the same path on rural highways and back roads, right up the San Andreas rift zone, across the Carrizo Plain and through Parkfield, which dubs itself "the world's earthquake capital" because of its frequent shakers and the U.S. Geological Survey's extensive monitoring equipment in town. (The easier route to Pinnacles National Monument is U.S. 101, where exits at King City and Soledad lead to the west and east entrances.)

We had been curious about Pinnacles since spotting it on the map, so we decided to check it out during three days of camping at the end of March.

Pinnacles is a park you have to see on foot, but that's not difficult because of its compact size (16,265 acres, about 2% the size of Yosemite) and its 30 miles of hiking trails.

The park has no lodging, but Soledad and King City have motels, and a private campground lies just outside the eastern entrance off California Highway 146. That's where we pulled in on a Friday afternoon.

Most of the 103 tent sites are large and grassy. I had called for a reservation earlier that week and booked the last site available, inches from a mini-swamp that I was afraid would harbor mosquitoes. (The facilities also include 36 RV sites with electrical hookups, restrooms with showers and flush toilets, and a pool open April to October.)

At the Bear Gulch Visitor Center we looked at maps and asked questions. According to Ranger Charles Ewing, the park is most popular in spring and fall; summer can be hot and dry, although mornings are cool enough for hiking.