We were a smaller group of 8 people for the Pinnacles Group, as 2 of my Donnettes had to cancel (both Megan and Christine). Only 2 Donnettes remained (Fran and Heather), but they did their best to cheer me up.
Our group consisted of -
The hauling of gear worked out good. I hauled a Burly camping trailer and most others had panniers. We hauled sleeping bags, tents, pads, and clothes. Camp food and coolers and chairs went in one pickup truck that came along, driven by one guy that only wanted to camp and hike. Two of our newer riders also put all of their gear in the truck. This worked out good as the stronger riders were handicapped with the heavier loads and so the whole group was able to ride together and not be spread out.
We left my house at 8:15 and were in Morgan Hill at 9:25, about 10 minutes late for our meeting up with Heather, who joined us there. We found Heather and while we were regrouping Jeff helped himself to a quick Starbucks stop since there was one nearby. Our next reststop was the Bolsa Chevron in Gilroy at mile 30, followed next a lunch stop at Flap Jacks in Tres Pinos at mile 53. We met day-riders Art Cruz and Ken Koach there. After about an hour for lunch we were on the road again by 1:30. Only 25 miles to go.
There was one long uphill that showed how the load-handicapping worked. Both Heather and I were able to ride up the hill at the same effort level, joined soon after by Doug. We waited at the top for the others for quite a long time. Finally the others all arrived, having waited with brother John who was already over his max-mileage and so needed a few restbreaks on the hill. At this same time our SAG also appeared, so it was a good thing that we didn't rush off to get to camp as we would have gotten there before the SAG. By 3:30 we were all in camp at 78 miles. By 4:00, we had tents up and were at the pool.
The highlite in camp was going to the swimming pool, as that was what we all looked forward to, both on the ride down, and after the hiking the next day. Our campsite was not too far away, and had a good selection of spots to pitch tents.
I had read on the Pinnacles website that the condors might be released there this September or October, but we didn't notice anything related to this on this trip. Our last trip we went to the campfire program and the condors were the subject for the evening. We didn't go to any campfire program this trip, as we had enough people to just sit and socialize around our own campfire. The only campfire that is allowed is with the presto logs, but this worked quite well. We lit one log each evening and it lasted well into the night, much longer than we were willing to stay up.
My legs are tired today and I think it must be from the hike on Sunday. We started at about 9:30 and didn't get back until almost 4:00. Since we didn't have enough people to all fit in the truck, 4 of us took the free shuttle bus up into the Pinnacles to the trailhead and visitor center about 3 miles away. The shuttle was free but we still needed to pay $5 for our group (or $2 for a single person). We joined up with the truck people and then we all headed up on the Condor Gulch Trail, going all uphill to join the High Peaks Trail. We then went up through the High Peaks and dropped down the back side to the parking lot over on the Soledad side of the mountain.
We rested and ate our lunches, refilled our water bottles, then continued on the Balconey Caves Trail. We brought flashlights for the cave. After the cave we continued on the Old Pinnacles Trail which went back around the mountain. Towards the end, the truck people had to hike back up to the Visitor Center to get their truck while the Shuttle people continued on back to the camp. Since the hike back to camp was one mile longer, the truck arrived just as we were getting back.
After the hiking I was very glad that I was camping and so did not to have to drive off back home. Instead we all went over to the pool and hung out until it was time to start thinking about dinner. This was helped out by the fact that they close the pool at 6:00 PM, so we just stayed until it closed.
On Monday we had a leisurely breakfast and started packing things up. By 9:30 we were ready to go.We stopped for snacks in Paicines at mile 19, then in Hollister for Lunch at mile 32, then in Gilroy for snacks at mile 47. One more stretch got us to Morgan Hill at mile 61, where we dropped Heather off at her condo. From here we took the reservoirs route past Chesbro and Calero, finally getting back to San Jose and my house at 84 miles and almost 6:00 PM.