David and I were really looking forward to spending this weekend snowcamping up at Lassen National Park. But the forecast wasn’t cooporating, and we’ve had enough of driving through bad weather this winter. It isn’t so much the camping out in the snow that is annoying (actually, that’s the fun part), it’s the driving through the mountains when the weather is bad that is the problem.
So instead we decided to stay home and take advantage of today’s nice weather by doing a nice long dayhike through Pinnacles National Monument. I was a bit dissapointed that we were too early for the flowers this year, but we did get to have a lot of fun splashing through the water at the Balconies caves. The ‘trail’ approach to the cave (more like a canyon) from the west entrance had a stretch of about 150 feet that was completely submerged in water, almost a foot deep in a few places. And it was cold! The advantage of this was that most people stayed out of the cave area, so it was much less crowded than usual. We had the cave to ourselves today – I think that’s the first time that’s ever happened.
It was also fun seeing all the snow on the peaks in the Bay Area today – we should have taken our skis up to Mt Hamilton!
