Pinnacles Campground

If you like COVID-19, flies, direct sun all day, sweltering heat, hiking twice as far because parking areas are closed, then Summer of 2020 at Pinnacles is for you!

Of course, I am just kidding. It was quite a shame as we drove around seeing numerous campsites that had multiple days booked but after one day, everyone had left.

This campground would be really amazing in the late fall or winter. I’m sure there are less flies and it is much cooler than but during the Fourth of July weekend of 2020 it was miserable.

Due to COVID-19, the park rangers have closed down all the parking near the trail heads so you have to take an extra 3 miles just to get to the trail heads. Most hikes are 9 to 11 miles, in direct sun light. You would need to start before daybreak to get back at a reasonable time.

Also, watch out for the raccoons. They are very brazen. One came out of the bush looked directly at me jumped up on the table and tried to take our snack bag into the bush. I give him credit for trying. LOL

Great park, just come back in the late fall or winter.

Also, this is a huge thing that is in the small print. The national Park entrance is on the other side of the mountain and hour and a half away from the campgrounds. It’s almost 2 different areas completely. From the campgrounds, you cannot even view the pentacles directly. You have to hike to view them. The national park on the other side of the mountain allows you some great views however, it is a one lane road in and not advisable for RVs or trailers.

We were really thankful to find a campground with all this lockdown going on. The staff were super friendly, just awesome and made our stay a delight. Our electric surge protector noted "open ground" so it kept tripping. We were not the only ones it was happening too. The only way around it was to plug in directly into the outlet (30 amp), we didn't want to do this, but did as we needed the air conditioning as it is starting to heat up there. Great time to go as the road is closed to the trails and bikes are allowed, so take your bike if you are going! The bathrooms are open, one with showers, but we used our own. The store is open too. The pool is closed along with some of the trails. They do need to add more restrooms/showers and to update the ones that they have. Narrow road getting there, so keep that in mind if your rig is long (ours 32 diesel pusher). The grounds need to be mowed, seems they aren't on top of grooming the place. Amphitheater is over grown, not in use, but still lacking maintenance. Great Covid-19 getaway!

Wide sites with 30amp electric, central dump, and several potable water stations scattered about. Campfire rings (when fire danger is low) and access to visitor center (check in, pay fees, and has small concessions/food/camping store). Showers and restrooms within campgrounds. Access to bench trail head.
Plenty of turkeys, deer and quail wandering around the campground. Can sit and watch condors flying from your site during the day.
Reminder that this campground is on the east side of the park, east and west sides are NOT connected by a road. Watch where your GPS tries to take you.
Absolutely no cell nor WiFi service.

Had a quick stopover at Pinnacles and really enjoyed the campground. Stayed with my small trailer in the tent area and found it lovely and peaceful. While dogs aren’t allowed on trails, the campground road made for a lovely evening walk. The showers are a long walk away near the visitor center, and looked fine but not great. #5 was a corner spot so we had no neighbors and tons of space. Minimal shade, but perfect for charging solar. Highlight was all the bunnies that came out in the evening!

Two campgrounds: tent sites with no hookups and an RV Loop with electric. We chose the latter since we are having problems with our solar. Several sites are not open due to damage (storms, vandalism, not sure why) and the ones that are open could still use a little sprucing up. We were in site 112 which had the advantage of shade from a huge oak tree. Since the three sites to our left were closed and the one to our right was not occupied, it felt private but if all sites were open and occupied, there would not be much privacy between sites. 116 looked to be the best site in this Loop. Wooden picnic table was a little warped and there was a huge hole at one corner that I tripped in more than once. We tried to re-position the table but there was no way it would budge. No bathrooms in the RV Loop but it was not that far of a walk to the flush toilets in the tent Loop. The road on the RV Loop was part paved and in fine condition but part dirt with deep ruts that were impossible to navigate around. This campground gets extra points for recycling, especially of propane canisters. The campground is located at the East entrance to the park by the Visitor center; there are no campgrounds by the west entrance and you cannot drive between the two (you can hike). Lots of hiking, Condor sightings and, in the spring, many wildflowers.

Pinnacles is an amazing park with great hiking.
The campground is situated among the bushes which offers some privacy. The bathrooms were clean. Only annoying thing was the campers who pulled up late and set up directly across from me and constantly shined their headlights directly into my camp, I couldn’t sleep and it totally blinded me! So rude.

I was here during winter and the road into the campground required driving across a stream - no biggie but in a rainstorm it could get crazy maybe.
Hiking here is so great. There was frost in the morning everywhere when I camped in late December. But I’ve hiked here many times in the spring and summer and it can get very hot!!! Watch for rattlesnakes!

December camping is iffy. Cold, but sunny. Hiking trails not overly crowded early in day, lots fill up in late morning. No shuttle in winter to trail heads. Condors, falcons and many moles and ground squirrels call this home. Bathrooms functional. Pay showers. Site reasonably level. Absolutely no AT&T or Verizon cell service whatsoever.

We absolutely loved the trails and the wildlife at Pinnacles National Park and would return in a minute to experience the dramatic condor-filled peaks and the fun caves. Unfortunately, the only realistic place to camp is within the park itself, on the eastern side, and for RVs the campground is in pretty bad shape. The one RV loop is basically a large sand lot, with little to define the sites other than utility posts. There is little shade or privacy between sites. The campground loop road is a dirt road and had many large and treacherous potholes at the time of our visit. Many of the RV sites were also closed because of danger that the few remaining trees in the campground might topple. There are also several tent camping loops, but those sites are almost uniformly too small to accommodate RVs. The one nice feature of the RV camping loop is that it has electric service, a rarity for national park campgrounds.

The bathhouse is in terrible shape. It is woefully undersized – one bathhouse serves all RV campers as well as day use visitors – and is located relatively far from the camping loop. There are toilets in some of the other camping loops (group camping, tent camping, etc.) but there are just four showers (2 for men and 2 for women) serving the entire campground. The bathhouse is in dire need of replacement, since the stalls are corroded away and don’t close, and the fixtures all drip. All in all, this was one of the worst national park campgrounds we’ve experienced because there is a tremendous amount of deferred maintenance.

The best aspects of the campground are the location (it’s the only game in town on the east side of the park), frequent visits by wildlife, and the ability to hike several of the park’s trails directly from the campground. We visited in the off-season, so with no neighbors and a virtually empty campground it was tolerable. We had site 120, which was one of the better sites for privacy (dense foliage behind it and the curb side faces a little-used driveway).

There is no signal to be had anywhere nearby on AT&T, though we did pick up several bars of LTE when hiking the High Peaks Trail.