Pinnacles National Park

Matt and I haven't been on a proper hike in ages, so we decided to skip our usual Saturday morning yoga routine and get on the road.  We drove south to Pinnacles National Park, which was just added to the National Park system earlier this year.  It's known for towering rock formations left over from an extinct volcano, which makes the park pretty popular with rock climbers.  Pinnacles is also known for talus caves, which are essentially caves formed by piles of huge boulders.  The caves house at least thirteen species of bats, although we looked but didn't see any of them on our hike.  Matt also read that Pinnacles has one of the highest diversity of bees on the planet -- over 400 species live in the park.  And if that weren't enough, Pinnacles is also a release site for the endangered California Condor.  We didn't see much beyond the occasional ground squirrel and a small flock of deer, but we were also in a cave half the time, so that might account for the lack of wildlife sightings.

We decided to skip the highest elevations this time around and headed for Bear Gulch Cave instead.  We started out hiking along a dry stream bed, stopping along the way to admire the large Ponderosa Pine and Chestnut trees.  The California Sycamore were also showing their fall colors, which made the first part of the hike quite colorful.  

Once we got to the caves, we climbed up through piles of huge boulders and stairs carved into the rock.  At times it was pitch dark without our flashlights, and all we could hear was the trickle of water through the cave.  Matt was on the lookout for bats, but we never found any.  We emerged at the top of the cave system and had lunch by a little water reservoir.

From the reservoir, we skirted a few large rock formations before heading back down to lower elevations.  There were glimpses of even more Pinnacles from the trail, but the sun was getting low, so we decided to come back another day to explore the highest peaks.  

Mountain unicycling

Matt's got a new hobby:

 

Full photo set here.

It's been quiet

It's been a quiet couple of months here. Ever since our wedding in July, we've been keeping a low profile. With the start of school in September, most of my photography, crafting, and cooking has been dialed back significantly, for better or worse. But that doesn't mean we haven't been keeping busy -- Matt's been unicycling and yoga-ing regularly almost every weekend, Henry's been a teenage joy and terror all at once, and I've been thinking more about teaching and how to get better at it.

I also took a little trip to western Mass to witness the marriage of one of my college friends. We've known each other almost 14 years now, so she is the closest thing I have to a sister. Her wedding was tucked away in the woods of a beautiful Quaker retreat center in Deerfield. Here are a few outtakes:

The above shots should give some indication as to why I'd make a pretty lousy wedding photographer -- I forgot to photograph the people! I was having such a wonderful weekend catching up with old friends, eating delicious food, dancing, singing, and roasting marshmallows that I completely neglected my camera for most of the weekend. Sometimes just the memories are enough, though, and this weekend was full of lots of special ones.