| Location: Old Pinnacles Trail and Balconies Loop, Pinnacles National Park, California Distance: 5.3 miles (out & back) Peak Elevation: 1,502 feet Elevation Gain: 515 feet Difficulty: Moderate Reminder: Bring water and a headlamp |
The popular Old Pinnacles Trail forms a lollipop hike when combined with the Balconies trail loop. The path begins beside Chalone Creek. At Balconies Cave, all your spelunking dreams will come true. After a short climb, you will see massive rock formations like Machete Ridge above. Then, it’s a creek walk back to the trailhead.
| Directions to Trailhead | Hiking Directions | Chalone Creek | Balconies Cave | Machete Ridge |
Directions to Trailhead
| From the 5 just north of Kettleman City, take exit 325. Turn left on Jayne Avenue and drive 10.6 miles. Continue on CA-33 N/E Polk Street and drive one mile. Turn left onto Elm Avenue and continue 33.9 miles on CA-133 W. Turn right onto CA-25 and continue 33.1 miles. Make a left turn onto CA-146 W and drive 4.4 miles. Park at the Old Pinnacles trailhead. |
Hiking Directions
| Trailhead: Head north on Old Pinnacles Trail. 0.3 miles: At the junction, turn right to stay on the trail. 0.5 miles: At the junction, keep left to stay on the trail. 0.75 miles: At the junction, keep left to stay on the trail. 2.1 miles: At the junction, turn left onto the Balconies Cave Trail. 2.2 miles: Enter the Balconies Cave. 2.5 miles: At the junction, turn right onto the Balconies Cliffs Trail. 3.3 miles: At the junction, turn left onto the Old Pinnacles Trail. 4.45 miles: At the junction, keep right to stay on the trail. 4.7 miles: At the junction, keep right to stay on the trail. 5 miles: At the junction, turn left to stay on the trail. 5.3 miles: You have returned to the trailhead. |
Chalone Creek
Old Pinnacles Trail is a nice, wide, dirt path. It’s well-groomed and dusted with orange pine needles. Turn right at the first junction by the bridge. You’ll walk above Chalone Creek, to the left. Inside the dry wash are red and green rocks.
There’s a spot with tall trees and plenty of shrubs where you can hear the warbling covey of quails. Their boomerang-shaped plumage bobs up and down as they scurry across the trail. Chaparral, manzanita, barberry, and red buckwheat bushes blanket the landscape. In addition to oak trees and gray pines, you may notice some California Buckeyes. Their big round seeds have a light gray husk. Indigenous groups used the poisonous seeds to stun schools of fish for easy pickings. They also boiled the toxins away and ground the buckeyes into a flour.
After a wooden bridge, there’s an old wilderness trail that forms a large arc in the north of the park. However, a ranger said to skip it since it’s overgrown. By the tree-lined creek, the shade and a soothing breeze is very comforting.
From behind the trees, you can start to see little pinnacles along the ridgeline. They resemble baby dragon’s teeth poking out of gums.
Balconies Cave
Right before the cave entrance, the towering Balconies rock formation suddenly appears. Once you pass through the gate, you’ll need to have your headlamp ready. Some serious spelunking is about to begin at the Balconies Cave. It quickly becomes pitch dark. There’s some light scrambling through the narrow passage. Shine your light on the smooth rock to ensure proper footing. When you look up, you’ll see some rays of light poking through the roof. One of the dark crevices has a fluttering bat.
Balconies Cave is not your run of the mill cave. It is a talus cave. Massive boulders have tumbled down into these slender slot canyons. Like piles of talus rocks at the base of a mountain, these ginormous boulders have wedged themselves in the passageways. The cave contains the spaces within these gaps. While still dark and spooky, this cave is not underground.
During your cave adventure, you will need to duck beneath low hanging rocks and shimmy past narrow rock walls. With a headlamp, you have both hands for scrambling across the cave walls. There’s also a stone staircase just before the climb out of the cave. You will momentarily see daylight as the trail is outside between the two cave sections.
The final stretch of the Balconies Cave consists of giant boulders wedged between the walls from a long-ago landslide. I picture Indiana Jones running for his life as a rolling boulder chases him in a dark tunnel. Each rock seems larger than the last. As you move through the tunnel, you can see more of the sky behind the big round rocks stuck above.
Machete Ridge
After exiting Balconies Cave, the trail soon connects with Balconies Cliff Trail. The turnaround spot for the Balconies Trail loop is just before the bridge. At this point, another ranger praised my hand-drawn map, which I made because the park wasn’t providing maps during the government shutdown. A few switchbacks rise almost 200 feet in 0.2 miles. From the top of the cliff, you have great views of the Balconies and Machete Ridge. Pinnacles form a crown on the ridgeline. Most of them look like jagged teeth.
After the Balconies loop, the path reconnects to Old Pinnacles Trail, the stick of the “lollipop.” As the sun dips below the tall pinnacles, the Balconies seem the glow. Now that fall is finally here, some of the leaves have turned red and yellow. Once you’ve retraced your steps along the creek, a woodpecker near the lot announces your return with some light headbanging.
