Tom's National Park Adventure

The day started a little differently on Saturday morning! The holiday weekend had started and so had the influx of people. Parking to get to the hiking areas was completely filled by 7:30AM. The park rangers blocked access to these areas until later in the afternoon, when sufficient cars left after completing their hikes

So my neighbors in the campground and I hiked down to the Parker’s homestead to check out the buildings there.

I was able to bypass the traffic and parking issues by riding my bike up to the trailheads! I then hiked on the Moses Spring trail up to the Bear Gulch Resevoir. I took the Rim trail back down. The distances weren’t as great as the day before but the elevation gain was much higher!

After my hiking was done for the day, my neighbors invited me to enjoy a S’more at their campfire that evening!

Before the s’mores I got to experience my second “first”! Right from my campsite, I was able to watch as many as ten California Condors hovering and gliding on the thermal winds created by the Pinnacles. I could barely make them out without my binoculars. With them, I was able to watch them getting ready to bed down for the night. They were too far away for a picture.