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71

Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: MUD 'N CRUD PICTURES THREAD - WEEKLY FAVORITE

« Last post by BAP on November 04, 2025, 01:08:21 PM »

Nick photo Marco!
The toad reminded of "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride"

And I love Dances with Warthogs.  Such a great climb!  Wish I could go climbing...

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: MUD 'N CRUD PICTURES THREAD - WEEKLY FAVORITE

« Last post by Marco on November 04, 2025, 09:26:16 AM »

Site appears to be glitching lately... probably from the large amount of people active here. Anyways heres a picture of Toad, hopping back to his campsite after a 10 10s east side day.



and Ryan "slaying" Dances with Warthogs. Good day with Gavin + Ryan

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by Chris Henry on October 19, 2025, 08:53:01 AM »

Westside status from yesterday: (Sat. 10/18/2025)

 - We arrived at the Westside entrance a bit after 8 to find the gate open and the entrance booth unstaffed. As others have noted, the road is closed immediately after the visitors center necessitating a short walk to the regular parking lot.
 - The westside was quiet, but had a trickle of well behaved visitors throughout the day.
 - Climbing conditions in the shade were glorious
 - On the way out we were surprised to find the gate closed (~7:30), with its automatic opening mechanism manually disassembled, and the two sides manually locked with a padlock. This trapped us and ~10ish cars of stargazers in the park.
 - We returned and asked several of the stargazing parties if they knew anything about the gate - but all had shown up a bit earlier when the gate was open.
 - Eventually, a furloughed ranger arrived and told everyone they had to leave before law enforcement showed up
 - I have a tremendous amount support/sympathy for the government employees (especially within the ups) current caught up in this nonsense so I didn't question further but simply drove back to the gate to wait for it to be opened. I remain confused about how disassembling an automated mechanism and locking people inside a park was beneficial to the goal of getting people to leave a park.

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by looks easy from here on October 11, 2025, 06:22:33 PM »

I realized yesterday right about when I hit Tres Pinos that I neglected to clarify whether or not the East Side was open and had a bit of an anxious drive the rest of the way in. Fortunately it was open, weather was perfect, no one was there, and we had a great day.

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by Tuff Chik on October 09, 2025, 01:09:55 PM »

According to what I see when doing a search regarding Pinnacles National Park being open, it says it's open to hiking, but visitor centers are closed.

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by looks easy from here on October 08, 2025, 04:19:40 PM »

Oh, shoot. I misread that. I thought the cones were blocking off the visitor center parking, not the road beyond the visitor center. Thank you for clarifying that before I showed up and was very disappointed.

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by Marco on October 08, 2025, 03:28:43 PM »

hopefully the gate doesn't get opened too late, because hoofing all the way in from there won't really be a very realistic option for us.

the gate was open and the visitor center parking was open ... beyond it was coned off to keep people from going to the actual parking lot.

Even if the gate is open, if it was the same as last Saturday, then it still will be an additional 2+ miles round trip. The cones in the road were located just past the visitor center, within a quarter mile of the gate.
Unless you're fine moving cones, in which case it's buisness as usual.

Sorry for any confusion in original message.

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by looks easy from here on October 07, 2025, 08:12:08 PM »

Yep. My youngest is knocking on the door of 7 now

I haven't hiked the Jawbone trail yet, but I was looking at it earlier today. That might be our secondary objective if we get stopped outside the gate

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by Brad Young on October 07, 2025, 05:23:02 PM »

You must be talking about someone else's child then?

And don't forget that if you ever end up doing that hike, the Jawbone trail leads from the Visitor Center to main parking. It's a pretty cool trail with great views.

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Masters of Mud -- Pinnacles / Re: Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

« Last post by looks easy from here on October 07, 2025, 05:18:48 PM »

I think this is a different kiddo than the one you are thinking of. And while I know she's a trooper (we went backpacking with her up at Ebbitt's Pass this summer), I think the hike in would become the adventure and we wouldn't make it out the Rolling Stones, which is our planned objective.