Pinnacles Trip

On March 4 and 5, the troop traveled to Pinnacles National Monument, which it had not visited for more than twenty years. The Scoutmaster could not attend, so Beck Diefenbach and I were the uniformed leaders. We left the city early, since the trip to Pinnacles National Monument was far away compared to other trail heads. The campsite lay between a broad parking lot and stream well-hidden by vegetation, so no hiking was required.

When we had struck camp and eaten lunch, we went up to Bear Gulch Day Use Area to meet the rock climbing instructors who would help us in the afternoon. Alas, we disembarked too early and therefore hiked up to the proper site. After the climbing instructors had given a brief orientation, they handed off the climbing gear to the Scouts. We hiked the Moses Spring Trail and Bear Gulch Cave trail, where the instructors split the Scouts into two groups. The less experienced Scouts went to the closer and easier climbing site, while the more ambitious went to a wall above Bear Gulch Reservoir. Some of the Scouts had climbed before and were naturals, one so much so that I compared him a spider monkey (apparently so did my colleague), while others were new to the sport but willing to challenge themselves - one of the latter group accomplished the highest-rated ascent of the day. The Scouts were having an enormous amount of fun, but soon it was time to leave and return to camp.

 
The campfire that night was short but lively.  The requisite skits and yells were done by food groups rather than patrols,  since there were not enough members of some patrols to sustain a skit. Each patrol within a food group received the full amount of points for the group, rather than the insane proportional distribution system briefly used during my Scout career. The skits were short, but I have to give credit for an effort to include as many of the group as possible within the skit. The Troop Staff began the acclimatization of the younger Scouts to the traditions of summer camp and Royaneh by teaching Gazalla. My contribution, The Chickens Get Into The Tomatos, was more frivolous, and the timing of the round was off. That round sometimes works and sometimes does not. The campfire closed rather early. Some Scouts went to their tents, but others remained around the fire for another hour. I told them about the importance of Venus, which was shining brightly that night, and regaled them with the story of how Orion ended up in the night sky.

On Sunday morning we woke up early; some of the Scouts woke up especially early and exercised. The energy of teenagers never ceases to amaze me. On a lighter note, one of the fathers who had set up his tent under a tree discovered that the quail roosting in the tree for the night had expelled their waste upon it. When I saw this, I was glad that I had moved my sleeping bag out from under the same tree!

After a short and inspirational Scout's Own, we traveled to the trail head for the Old Pinnacles Trail. There was a portable latrine, but I was worried (unnecessarily, as it turned out) about the possibilities for changing into uniform for traveling back to San Francisco. We hiked along West Fork Chalone Creek to Balconies Cave, where the trail passes through the cave. We ascended through the cave – the Scouts loved it! When I visited the caves many years ago, I had descended through the cave rather than ascended. It was a slippery experience, especially with the backpacks of the time, which were nowhere near as compact as those of today. Fortunately, all the Scouts helped each other with the backpacks. There were a few wet spots in the cave this time, but nothing that adequate footwear could not handle. When we had almost reached the end of the cave, one of the Scouts, who had experience climbing, could not stay away from the walls. Perhaps he has some gecko in his ancestry!

Here are some more photos taken by my colleague, Beck Diefenbach:

We exited the cave and walked beneath the Balconies Cliff, a massive rock formation with a vertical green channels from the spring rains. Several Scouts spotted people, tiny in perspective, perched upon the rocks above the caves through which we had come. They must have climbed there. One Scout expressed a desire to live atop the rock, while others made the morbid jokes so typical of youth and Classicists. The walk back to the cars felt much longer than the way in, but dreams of In N Out spurred the tired troop onward!