March 15, 2015 - Although Pinnacles National Park is only a 2-hour drive from us, we have not visited for several years, certainly not since it received national park designation. Spring is always a great time to come to the park with the wild flower blooming and without the summer heat. We left home early and were on the trail before 9 am. The weather was perfect making the nearly 6-mile trek up and down the mountain very enjoyable. There were wild flowers everywhere, the familiar poppies, lupines, blue dicks, goldfields, along with others. Our favorite is the Venus Thistle, a gorgeous native thistle that is not invasive like the imported varieties. It is also called cogwebby thistle, which you should be able to appreciate from our posted photos. We were also fortunate to have a good look at 2 California condors. These are large birds that were once extinct in the wild, down to a world total of 22 birds in 1987. Thanks to a successful breeding program in captivity, the population now numbers over 400. Pinnacles is one of its habitat. Over the past 10 years, we had sightings in about half of our trips.

To see more photos beyond the slideshow below, please go to our gallery - Pinnacles in March