Bonus Chapter 6: To The Bat Cave!
Ok, that’s enough golf for a while.
Good grief. You don’t have to cheer so loud.
Just for that, here’s one more golf note. We actually finished the 17-Mile Drive earlier than I had originally planned. When planning the trip, I’d found a par-3 golf course right outside the Pebble Beach Lodge that seemed reasonable. I was all set to have the family play a quick 9 holes, just so we could say we played golf on the Monterey Peninsula. I even had my Facebook post all teed up (see what I did there?) and ready to go: WE PLAYED GOLF AT
the par 3 course next to PEBBLE BEACH!
Sadly, the course had been temporarily closed so they could erect hospitality tents for the upcoming U.S. Open. Womp womp.
So, we ate our peanut reduction and grape compote on wheat and moved on. We made a brief stop in Monterey to buy a couple of crappy drug store flashlights for the afternoon. Then we took a boring 1.5-hour drive through farms and then dusty rolling hills in the middle of nowhere before finally reaching our afternoon destination,
Pinnacles National Park.
The Pinnacles area has been protected land since 1906, but it was a National Monument during most of that period. It’s a relatively new National Park, having been converted in January 2013 under President Obama. The park mostly encompasses a small mountain range running along the San Andreas Fault and features distinctive rock formations—the “pinnacles” of the title.
I’d read that the peak visitation in the park happened during spring, so I was worried about the parking lots being full by the time we arrived. Thankfully, we arrived long after the wave and many visitors were already leaving for the day. Given that mid-afternoon is the hottest part of the day, it seemed wise on their part. Instead of staying in the air-conditioned van, we chose that part of the day to go on a hike. Because we are idiots.
After a brief visit to the visitor center to get our passport stamp and pick up a Junior Ranger workbook for Drew, we drove up into the hills.
We were lucky enough to find a parking space all the way at the end of the road, at the trailhead for Bear Gulch Cave. This is a mile-long hike that takes you up through Bear Gulch to a talus cave, which is a cave formed when a narrow canyon gets filled by boulders from rockslides. In other words, you’re climbing through a pile of rocks, and there are enough spaces in between to make it seem like a cave. The park website had said flashlights were required for this hike, hence the stop at the Monterey CVS. Drew insisted on taking the responsibility of holding a flashlight for us. He’s a take-charge kinda guy.
The hike took us through some neat passageways in the rocks.
When we reached the entrance to the cave, we found that there was a little stream running through the middle of it. This was “Bear Gulch”. The cave is actually home to bats, and the trail is occasionally closed during mating season for the bats. We did not encounter a single bat on our hike. I know you’re disappointed. We also did not see any sign of Alfred or Bruce Wayne.
Once inside, we found that the flashlights were indeed a necessity. As you can see in the photo above, there were portions of the trail where you basically had to walk through the stream. Without being able to see where you could pick your way through the rocks, you’d end up with cold, soaked feet.
We only had moderate success on that front, even with the flashlights.
Still, it was a lot of fun climbing through the cave. I think it’s fair to call caves the bacon of hikes—exploring a cave makes any hike better. You might think differently if you encounter thousands of bats, but whatever. We thought it was cool.
Looking out over the top of the cave:
The hike continues on to a reservoir on top of the mountain, but the trail was poorly marked and we took the wrong branch and hit a dead end. Rather than flounder around in the wilderness looking for a trail we’d never seen before in an area with no cell phone signal, we decided to return to the loop trail and head back down the mountain.
It had been nice and cool in the cave, but it was hot out in the sun, so we were all happy to get back to the van so we could blast the A/C and grab some drinks. We drove back down to the visitor center so Drew could be sworn in as a Junior Ranger and pick up his badge.
And then we settled in for another boring drive. This was 2.5 hours on back roads through winding hills dotted with…well, nothing. I can’t remember a single interesting sight along the drive. It got even more boring when we crossed the hills and into California’s great Central Valley, which might actually be flatter than Delaware. We took several 2-lane roads that blasted straight and true through miles of farm fields and orchards. After what seemed like forever, we finally reached a major road in Highway 99 and turned south toward the town of Tulare.
It was here that we had a DISMeet at dinner. Alicia (
@Leshaface), her husband Dan, and her boys were gracious enough to up with us at a sandwich/pizza shop called
Bravo Farms. Dan and Alicia’s kids might be the friendliest kids I’ve ever met. They were best friends with Drew about 30 seconds into the conversation. Needless to say, with three young boys there, our table was…how should I put it?
Loud.
It was kind of funny—you could see a big ring of empty tables all around us, kind of like a buffer zone between us and any other patrons in the restaurant. It reminded me of…just about every time my family goes out to eat.
I figured when in California, order the tri-tip, and ended up with a pretty decent beef sandwich. The kids shared some pizza, and I don’t have the foggiest idea what Julie ordered. Once again, it’s that incisive detail that keeps you coming back to these TR’s.
Alicia and Dan were incredibly easy to talk to. We laughed a lot and had a great evening with them, and I remain amazed at the way we can meet people from the DISboards for the first time in person and immediately carry on a conversation like we’re old friends. Alicia and Dan, thanks for being such great hosts and taking the time to meet up with us.
Or at least they put up a good front. Clearly Dan didn’t actually want to be seen with us.
Travel map for day 3:
Coming Up Next: The National Park tour continues.