{"id":2503,"date":"2012-10-20T08:53:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T12:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.parksleepfly.com\/blog\/?p=2503"},"modified":"2025-08-22T06:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T10:11:07","slug":"camping-in-pinnacles-national-monument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parksleepfly.com\/blog\/camping-in-pinnacles-national-monument\/","title":{"rendered":"Camping in Pinnacles National Monument"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mu husband and I wanted to get out of town for my birthday&#8230; But we didn&#8217;t want to spend a lot of money. And we wanted to send some time outdoors before it got too cold (even in Southern California.) Inexpensive outdoor getaway? Sounds like a job for CAMPING!<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re talking car camping, not backpack-and-powdered-food camping. We have a roomy tent, a big cooler, and a nice propane stove. Hubs made a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.recreation.gov\/camping\/campgrounds\/234015\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reservation<\/a> at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/pinn\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pinnacles National Monument<\/a> (most major campgrounds take online reservations nowadays,) the site of a long-extinct volcano about 2 1\/2 hours from San Francisco. <a href=\"https:\/\/home.nps.gov\/pinn\/learn\/nature\/geology.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Actually, it&#8217;s two-thirds of a volcano<\/a>; Thanks to movement along the San Andreas Fault, the other third is still near Lancaster, where the volcano first came into being. But it felt more like being in a forest, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/pinn\/planyourvisit\/camp.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">campground<\/a> was beautiful and shady, nothing like the barren, rocky landscape we expected.<\/p>\n<p>We didn&#8217;t rough it the whole time&#8230; We broke up the drive with stops in the charming Dutch town of <a href=\"https:\/\/solvangusa.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Solvang<\/a>, and did a little <a href=\"https:\/\/pasowine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wine tasting in Paso Robles<\/a>. We spent most of our camping time reading, cooking, and relaxing, though we did take a beautiful hike to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/pinn\/planyourvisit\/cavestatus.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bear Gulch Talus Cave<\/a>. Talus caves are formed by big boulders falling such that they create spaces inside, where the temperature is blissfully cool, and visitors might run into a few <a href=\"https:\/\/home.nps.gov\/pinn\/learn\/nature\/bats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Big-eared bats.<\/a> (We didn&#8217;t, though. We also didn&#8217;t spy any California Condors, but 32 of the rare birds live within Pinnacles as part of the California Condor Recovery Program.)<\/p>\n<p>We did get a little dirty, and discover we need to invest in a better air mattress&#8230; But Pinnacles National Monument was such a wonderful place to find some peace and tranquility, we&#8217;ll definitely be back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mu husband and I wanted to get out of town for my birthday&#8230; But we didn&#8217;t want to spend a lot of money. And we wanted to send some time outdoors before it got too cold (even in Southern California.) Inexpensive outdoor getaway? Sounds like a job for CAMPING! We&#8217;re talking car camping, not backpack-and-powdered-food [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[678],"tags":[562],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Camping in Pinnacles National Monument | PSF Travel Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find out more about Camping in Pinnacles National Monument. 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