A Long and Winding Road to Pinnacles National Park

I made it to Thousand Trails San Benito RV & Camping Resort near Pinnacles National Park yesterday. As the Beatles once said “it was a long and winding road”… and rough too! Things got bounced around in my trailer a lot including my TV, but it seems to be OK. I can’t be positive until I get somewhere that has TV reception or cable.

Today I drove to Pinnacles National Park. This is the fifth National Park on my trip. It is a pretty park but the road from the west entrance is only four miles long. I went into the visitor’s center to show them my pass. They told me that they were running a free shuttle bus, so I took it. Good thing because once you get to the trailheads there is very little parking and all the parking spaces were taken.

I got off the bus and started up the Condor trail. The ranger had told me that it would be the most likely place to see California Condors. I had my Sigma 150-600mm lens with me, so off I set. The path wasn’t all that bad, but it was rocky. I have a bad ankle and the rocks made my ankle hurt a lot. But I was determined to get some pictures of a Condor.

The only other time that I have seen a Condor in the wild was in Zion National Park in Utah. There I only had a 300mm lens and the birds were super high, and they only looked like little specks in the picture. Today I had a bigger lens and the Condors were a lot lower. When I got back to the ranger station, I asked the ranger if what I got was a Condor or a Turkey Vulture. He looked at it and said that it was and asked me if I could see the tag on the wing. I couldn’t tell on the small 3-inch screen on the camera. When I looked at them, I could see the tags. I plan on stopping and telling the ranger tomorrow what numbers I saw. I guess that they want to know to help keep track of them.