Why you should visit Pinnacles, California’s least-explored national park

But few people envision Pinnacles National Park, including lifelong Bay Area residents who are unaware it’s just a two-hour drive away.

Oddly enough, Pinnacles park officials like it that way. And the park certainly isn’t alone in its relative obscurity.

Many of the 63 national parks in the U.S. have very little foot traffic, according to an annual list ranking America’s least-visited national parks. These parks are billed as "perfect for the nature lover who hates crowds." 

Pinnacles’ place on that list is firmly cemented. The number of visitors peaked at around 350,000 in 2021, when more and more people were looking to get outside during the pandemic. Before that, yearly visitors hovered between 200,000 and 240,000 from 2012 to 2018. Then, in 2019, the number of visitors plummeted after a government shutdown impacted operations, followed by smoke from wildfires and vandalism at the park in 2021 and 2022.

By comparison, Yosemite has averaged more than 3 million visitors every year since 1987, with over 4 million during five of the past eight years and 5 million in 2016.

"Everyone loves an underdog," Pinnacles park ranger Chris Symons told SFGATE. "There are a lot of people in San Francisco, for example, that will tell you they love the national parks. They go to Yosemite every weekend. But they’ve never been to Lassen in Northern California.” 

Symons doesn’t mean this as a criticism of Yosemite, where he has also worked as a park ranger. “It’s an incredible place, but it’s like going to Disneyland with [the crowds],” he said.

So why don’t more people visit Pinnacles? It’s a good question, with a complex answer.

First, the park’s location about 75 miles south of San Jose is a bit tricky. Having made the drive many times myself, I can confirm the two-plus-hour drive from the Bay Area can sometimes feel much longer. When you get off Highway 101 near Gilroy, the park is still another hour away via winding two-lane roads through farmlands. You will, however, run into beautiful rolling hills and scenery straight out of a Windows screensaver just before arriving at Pinnacles.

Then there’s the extreme weather. Temperatures routinely hit triple digits in the summer, meaning families looking for a place to take the kids when they’re out of school aren’t about to hit Pinnacles. The best time to visit is between February and June — especially the months of March and May — to enjoy the park’s many wildflowers. Pinnacles hosts more species of bees than any area of its size in the world, Symons said. 

"We’re going to have a very big blooming season this year," he added, pointing to the Juniper Canyon Trail and the Moses Spring Trail.

Parking is also an issue — a big one. I know this from personal experience, having refereed a Pinnacles parking lot argument between two waiting drivers who wanted my spot. "There will be lines to park," Symons said. "It will take over an hour to park your car, never mind get on a trail." Spots that are wide open on weekdays are rarely free on Saturdays and Sundays. If you’re not there by 10 a.m., you may need to use overflow parking, which could add miles to a hike.

"It is a night-and-day difference," Symons said. "Any visitors that get here Monday through Friday have an absolute paradise of nature completely to themselves."

Pinnacles is also a relative newcomer to California’s national park scene. While the area became Pinnacles National Monument in 1908 — the same week the Grand Canyon was added as an official national park — it wasn’t formally designated a national park until President Barack Obama signed legislation in 2013. "In that time, we’ve had very little change to the park itself," Symons said. "As people have been discovering us, they’re visiting the park and finding out what the park is about."

"That’s part of Pinnacles being a newer, less-discovered part of the system," he added.

Symons described Pinnacles’ main draw as "the three C's": cliffs, caves and condors.

Rising from the Gabilan Range near the Central Coast, Pinnacles’ unique jagged rocks, monoliths and canyons are the result of ancient volcanic activity roughly 23 million years ago. They’re ever present at most points in the park, but the real attraction is the High Peaks Trail that takes you to Pinnacles’ uppermost lookout points. "It’s like a salad bowl filled with tennis balls, the way these rocks have fallen through these canyons," Symons said. 

The caves are sometimes closed due to flooding or wildlife sensitivity but otherwise should not be missed. (Bear Gulch is home to a colony of Townsend's big-eared bats, while Balconies Cave features a 2-mile hike over volcanic rock.) 

Last but certainly not least, Pinnacles’ condors, nesting high above the park, are as enormous as they are stunning to see in person. The park became a release and management site as part of the California Condor Recovery Program in 2003 and co-manages all of the wild condors in Central California. Specific times and locations are best to catch a glimpse of one, so be prepared.

Do park rangers wish more people would visit? Kind of, but not really.

"It’s hard to be sad about," Symons said of the lower attendance, instead offering a positive spin to those looking for such a trip. "Pinnacles offers a more tangible, interactive and engaging experience than any other national park I’ve ever visited."