February 21, 2013 - Balconies Trail

Trail head: Old Pinnacles Parking Lot

Hike Info:
Trail: Balconies Trail
Destination: Balconies Caves
Distance: 6.0
Travel Time: 3:10 (1.89 mph)
Moving Time:  2:25 (2.48 mph)
Elevation Rise: 826'
Maximum Elevation: 1.523'

Campsite #59

 Description:

I woke up first and read a few minutes from the Imitation of Christ. Then worked on this blog. Andrea got up about 45 minutes later, followed by Sherri. It is oatmeal for breakfast again. Yummy. Then we all pack up camp. Andrea leaves us around 10:30 and we head off to the trail head, after breaking camp.

Chalone Canyon

The trail head which we started at is called The Old Pinnacles Road. Way back when I was in Boy Scouts, we would camp there. Now, it is paved, instead of a dirt road. Also, there is nothing at the end of the road instead of an undeveloped campground. I think the campground was closer to the cave than where the parking lot is.

Balconies

We get out of the car and hit the road around 11. The Balconies Trail is pretty level, with some small ups and downs. Part way it follows the old road. It is hard packed, sandy soil, mostly in the shade. Chalone Creek creeps past us, sometimes flowing, other times disappearing. But what really strikes you is the huge rock cliffs which start to loom above us as we get closer to the caves. The area narrows down until we get to the base of a rock fall. These are the caves.

Sherri Climbing

Pondering the Climb

We don our headlamps and enter the boulder field. The boulders are stacked 40-80' high. Right from the get-go, these are not the caves I remember. The public could pretty much walk through them then. But now, we have to crawl up places, being careful not to bump our heads-Sherri did a few times, ouch! We also climbed up some steep , small steps in places-glad we had boots on. The headlamps came in use many times. There are no large caverns on this trip. But the clutter of rock make the caves interesting. Towards the end of the cave section, we come across several chockstones wedged straight above us-in some places causing us to duck. After going through there, I felt like Aron Ralston, but with two arms, thankfully.

Above the Caves

Yours truly, forgot to bring, or even pack, our lunch. So we had to be content to eat a Clif bar at the end of the trail, just after crossing the creek. We then decided to use a trail which bypasses the caves, but goes up towards the base of the Balconies. This ascent, reminded me, more in texture and temperature, than duration and rise of Refrigerator Canyon in Zion. The redness of the rock and the rising up to see the lay of the land. But the ascent only took about 20 minutes.

California Condor

Condors at their Next

When we got close to the base, we saw some black looking birds circling high up. One of them landed in a hole in the rock wall. The rest circled around. We looked at them for a good 15 minutes. Looked like some California Condors to us. As we traveled the base of the cliffs, we were able to look down on the boulder field which created the Balconies caves. It is still pretty impressive. We got back to the car around 2pm and took off.

Instead of coming back via Hollister, like we came, we went south down highway 25, towards Coalinga. There is some. Beautiful spring scenery in that area. Also, pretty isolated territory. Enjoyable drive. Had a Subway sandwich in Coalinga, then headed home. Got back to the house around 5.:30. Unpacked and had dinner at Casa. Pretty satisfying trip.

References:
Feb 19th Hike
Feb 20th Hike