Pinnacles National Monument: A beautiful National Park

Over the holiday break, the family decided to make a day trip to Pinnacles National Monument (National Park) which is located about 3 hours South of San Francisco. We had great weather, albeit a little on the cool side, and really enjoyed our short 3 mile hike.

This park has a nice variety of trails, caves, creeks and even a pretty little pond at the top of the hike. We were surprised that the pond was lightly frozen over, which is very unusual in Northern California. I really liked the reflection of the rocks off of the surface of the pond.

One of the highlights of this park is the hiking through the caves. They have two different caves (upper and lower), but due to the fact that  thousands of bats were hibernating, the upper cave was closed when we made our visit. As you exit the lower cave, you come out to this huge rock which has fallen and lodged itself in this precarious spot. Very cool!

The rock formations are really beautiful in this area.

Here is a self portrait of me shooting. This is probably one of the more flattering images of myself. :)

I shot this photo to include the foliage in the foreground, while still highlighting the rock formation in the center of the image.

As you might know, I am always trying to find the beauty in nature, even if it is not the obvious scene that most people would photograph. I shot this image showing the amazing colors of the natural growth on the rocks.