Pinnacles National Monument: Moses Spring Trail

I camped in the Pinnacles last night. Teddy Roosevelt set aside the Pinnacles National Monument in 1908, the same week he also set aside the Grand Canyon and Muir Woods. (Congress creates National Parks but National Monuments are created by presidential proclamation. [The National Park Service later assumed administration of all of them.]) I went for a short hike after I set up camp, before the sun went down. I had the place to myself.







The long-extinct Neenach Volcano created these stone formations before the San Andreas fault sheered off half the volcano and moved it here, ~2.5 hours south of San Francisco.





Pinnacles is known for its talus caves, formed by rocks falling down between other rocks and leaving openings where the rocks do not pack together tightly.































First it rained, and then it froze.



There is more to come.