Wednesday, January 11, 2017

On Monday, even with overcast skies, we tried to hike up Bear Gulch in Pinnacles National Park.  We didn't make it much more than a half mile before the rain turned us back.  We chose not to include those soggy pictures and instead tried again today.  It was still cloudy, but today we stayed dry.

Hoping to get a close look at Whitebark Sycamore trees was one of the reasons we hiked this trail.  We got close, but there was no good vantage point to capture these beautiful specimens.

The California Sycamores look amazing from the road above the gorge, but from this perspective, they looked far less impressive.

With all of the rain, we had plenty of running water in the gulch.  I suspect the park will be covered with wildflowers this spring.

Only one pine species was growing in the park.  It was really pretty small (compared to the giant Redwoods we recently visited).  These trees, maybe 30 to 40 feet tall, had the largest pine cones I have ever seen.

We crossed 7 or 8 bridges on the trail up to the Nature Center (which unfortunately was again closed).

Below, a collection of California Buckeyes gathered in the stream.  We never identified the source of the Buckeyes.  One of the Rangers said they dropped long ago and could not point out the trees without seeing the leaves.

The Buckeyes were the size of a tangerine.

Nature had painted this tree with a pallet that includes moss and fire.

I think there was one other RV in the campground with us after the holiday week ended.  It was almost eerily quiet walking Sam - nothing but wind and birds.  Not complaining, it was really nice!