Condors, great hiking and camping in Pinnacles National Park. Pin this for later.

The United States has many beautiful National Parks. In fact, as of 1/2021, we now have 63 and you can get the complete list on our National Park List page. In California, we are lucky to have nine, but I knew nothing about Pinnacles National Park. I didn’t even know it existed and completely missed it when I built our National Park page last year. Pinnacles National Park is near Paicines, California so imagine my surprise when I realized it was only about 70 miles east of Monterey in Central California, where we just finished a camp host gig.

After doing some research, I knew I wanted to visit this park and try to see the California Condors, but I didn’t know if the two highways on our route, CA-25 and CA-146, were appropriate for our 36’ foot class A motorhome towing our Jeep. Read on as we share our driving and camping experience, hiking trails, and weather information about Pinnacles National Park.

Camping in Pinnacles National Park

One of my favorite things about Pinnacles was the fact that we could camp inside the park on the east side. There is no camping on the west side. Having a 36’ class A motorhome means that sometimes we have to camp outside the park and drive-in, but luckily not this time!

After reading lots of reviews online, I was still hesitant about driving on CA-25 and CA-146 with our size RV because lots of reviews said the roads were very narrow, and no one talked about camping with an RV our size. I almost decided to skip this park but after talking about it with Penguin we decided to go forward with making a reservation. Our logic was if the NPS website didn’t state our size RV was prohibited then we should be okay. The NPS website clearly stated that RVs, large vehicles, and trailers were not recommended on CA-146 on the west side of the park.

Driving CA-25 and CA-146

While Penguin doesn’t mind the narrow roads, they stress me out, and I am not even the one driving. Narrow roads mean we have to drive even slower which can cause cars to back up behind us and I didn’t know if there would be any turnouts. Also, things can get really tight and briefly stressful when an oncoming RV or large truck goes by.

To try and minimize these issues we timed our trip to arrive Sunday around Noon and it worked great! Besides being narrow there was some overgrown trees/brush that stuck out slightly into the narrow road that forced us to drive over the double yellow line to avoid them. Again, with so few other cars, it wasn’t a problem so don’t let the narrow roads stop you from bringing your class A motorhome to Pinnacles!

We came in from Paicines, which is North on CA-25, and when we left we continued on CA-25 E. We then took Bitterwater Rd to US-101 S, and we would recommend these routes to other RVs our size.

Campground

One of the great things about camping inside the park, besides the beautiful mountains and the fact you don’t have to drive a long way home, was that we could walk from our campsite to the hiking trails. This did add over a mile each way so be prepared though! If you’d prefer to save your miles on foot for hiking, there are several parking lots throughout the park but these fill up on the weekends.

We were in site #101. This was a pull-through which is always nice, but our table and firepit were on the driver’s side of our motorhome. This meant our door opened up onto the campground road which wasn’t an issue for us but this is not ideal for everyone. Most of the other RV sites are back-ins without this issue.

There is 30A electricity at the site, which was nice because it allowed us to run our electric fireplace and keep our RV warm at night. There are water spigots throughout the campground (not the kind you can hook up to your RV though) but you can easily fill your fresh water tank if you have a gravity fill. There is a dump station near the entrance that we had no trouble using on our way out after hooking up the Jeep in the Visitor Center parking lot which was mostly empty.

The biggest surprise?

There is a swimming pool! Can you believe there is a swimming pool in the middle of a national park? The pool is typically open from the middle of April through the end of September.

One day we noticed people in one of the other RV sites showing a park ranger something through their binoculars. I took a quick look in that direction but I didn’t see anything. I didn’t think much about it until I was working on this article and highlighting things on the above Pinnacles Campground map. Then I noticed that there is a Condor Viewing spot, I highlighted it in purple, near the RV sites. Make sure you look for Condors at that spot and don’t miss it as we did.

The campground also had a small store with apparel, two types of firewood for $10-$16, and some basic essentials. Wi-fi was reasonable, $10 for five days, and was strong enough for basic internet activities. There are access points throughout the RV loop making for a decent connection. There was spotty T-mobile data coverage, but no AT&T or Verizon unless you were at the top of High Peaks trail.

In addition to the RV loop, they had multiple tent camping loops and group tent sites. Some of the tent sites were really nice with shade and a lot more privacy.

Tent Cabin Option

If tent camping is not your thing and you don’t own an RV, there is a Tent Cabin option. There were four Tent Cabins in the RV Loop (Loop D) and six in one of the Tent Loops (Loop B). The Tent Cabins are $119/night plus tax. I couldn’t find any information on the NPS website about the Tent Cabins, but I did find them on the recreation.gov website so here is a link to Tent Cabin site #114 where you can get more information.

These are electric cabins which have a fan, space heater, and two electrical outlets. You must bring your own bedding as no bedding is included. No food, trash bags, or cooking is allowed in the cabins so all food must be stored in your vehicle or the animal-proof locker outside.

Wondering what these Tent Cabins look it on the inside? Check out our pictures at the bottom of this article and see if this might be a good option for you.

Pinnacles National Park Trails

Our hikes. Day 2 = Yellow, Day 3 = Blue, Day 4 = Green, Day 5 = Orange. Link to NPS Trail Map.

We had five days at Pinnacles so we were able to hike the majority of the trails. For our first day, we started off some-what easy and hiked from the campground towards Bear Gulch.

One thing to keep in mind is that Pinnacles experiences extremely high visitation on weekends. When we arrived on Sunday the Old Pinnacles and Bear Gulch parking areas were full so Rangers were directing everyone to park at the Visitor Center (next to the Campground) and hike in. Remember this adds over one mile each way to your hike. If you want to hike High Peaks, Condor Gulch, or the Moses Spring trail on the weekend the recommendation is to arrive before 8:30 am.

California Condors

One of the main reasons I wanted to visit Pinnacles was to see the Calfornia Condors so on day two we headed out to hike the Condor Gulch-High Peaks Loop. This loop is highlighted in yellow on our trail map.

We parked at Bear Gulch and hiked the Condor Gulch Trail first. We saw condors soaring around a couple of times at the spots indicated on the map. I loved it! Bring binoculars as it was awesome to see them up close.

This is definitely a more challenging hike, especially once you are on High Peaks Trail crossing the peaks at the top of the ridge. There are steep steps and even handrails to keep you safe.

The loop ended up being 5.5-miles and the park map has it listed with an elevation change of 1,300 ft. This was one of the more technical hikes we have ever done which I enjoyed because they are more fun. I highly recommend this loop.

Caves

Unfortunately due to COVID-19 both the Balconies Cave and the Bear Gulch Cave were still closed. The Bear Gulch Cave is only open during certain times of the year due to the colony of bats that raise their young in the cave so check this NPS webpage for the status of the caves.

Balconies Cave

Even though the caves were closed I still wanted to hike to the entrances. For day three, we parked at the Old Pinnacles Parking area and set off on what would be an extremely exhausting hike. This hike is shown in blue on our trail map. We hiked Old Pinnacles Trail to the Balconies Cave entrance. The hike to the Balconies Cave entrance was fun as you are climbing over all of these rocks. I kept thinking we must be off-trail but nope that was part of the trail. After taking a peek through the closed gate we headed back to the trailhead.

From there we hiked Balconies Cliffs Trail to Balconies Trail to Juniper Canyon Trail to Tunnel Trail (which is part of High Peaks so we had the 1,300 feet elevation again) to Blue Oak Trail. What a day! To be honest we couldn’t wait to get back to the car. The Blue Oak Trail felt like it went on forever and our feet were killing us because of the downward incline. This loop ended up being almost 9 miles! While I did enjoy the Balconies Cave Trail and the awesome tunnel on the Tunnel Trail, I would not recommend doing this entire loop in one day.

Bear Gulch Cave and Reservoir

Some tight spots, tough with a backpack, on our way to Bear Gulch Reservoir

On day four we wanted to explore the Bear Gulch area. We decided to hike from the campground and take the Bench Trail to the Sycamore Trail. We continued on Moses Spring Trail to the closed Bear Gulch Cave. I was bummed this cave was closed because it looks so big. On our way to the Bear Gulch Reservoir, we had to go through some surprisingly technical sections to get to the Rim Trail.

This loop is highlighted in green on the trail map and ended up being 7.5-miles. I highly recommend these trails. I loved the feel on the Moses Spring Trail and the technical parts on our way to the reservoir which definitely surprised me with its beauty. It is tough to say if I loved the Condor Gulch-High Peaks Loop or this loop more.

South Wilderness Trail

For our last day, we hiked the South Wilderness Trail, shown in orange on our trail map. This ended up being a 6.75-mile roundtrip hike starting at the Campground. This trail was relatively flat, and we saw very few people. It was a great way to end five days of hiking, and our legs were grateful for no huge elevation changes. I recommend this trail for sunny days as there is some shade, and it is not as popular so it would be a good choice for a busy weekend.

Pinnacles National Park Weather

One of the major questions I have when planning a trip is what will the weather be like?

Weather Averages for Pinnacles National Park

We camped at Pinnacles 2/21 - 2/26 and the weather was almost perfect. Sunny days but not too warm (60s and 70s). A few days were overcast or had some clouds which is always a treat on a strenuous hike. The nights were cold, but not too cold that we couldn’t enjoy our campfire but by 9 pm it was time to head inside the RV.

Summers can get really hot and I am not a fan of hiking in 100-degree weather. The temperatures in Spring and Fall are ideal for hiking but I would recommend even late winter as we did. If you do visit in the summer you can always hike in the mornings and enjoy the swimming pool during the peak of the day.

Conclusion

Pinnacles National Park is not a park you hear much about, but it was a gem especially this time of year (late winter). We loved being able to camp inside the park which is not always the case with our size RV. The route to Pinnacles, CA-25 and CA-146, was narrow but doable for our 36’ foot class A motorhome towing our Jeep, just take it slow. The hiking trails, condors, and caves are worth the drive! When planning your next trip we recommend you check out Pinnacles National Park in California.

Looking for other things to do in California? Take a look at our California articles. Where are we going next? Don’t miss an adventure, subscribe today.