Accessibility during the 2025 government shutdown?

[looks easy from here]

Is the West Side open, or is the automatic gate being kept locked? Are they collecting fees? Is the West Side visitor center open for me purchase an annual NPS pass? I checked the Park's website and gave them a call, but I couldn't find any answers and there's no one there to answer the phone (though I guess that last fact probably answers my question about whether or not the visitor centers are open).

[Marco]

On Sat they had the west side gate closed until after 9AM (we parked in that dirt pullout right outside the gate and started hiking around 8:30). When we got back the gate was open and the visitor center parking was open but nobody was at the visitor center and the road beyond it was coned off to keep people from going to the actual parking lot.
Not sure if much has changed. I imagine nobody is collecting fees (already rare on west side prior to shutdown).

[looks easy from here]

Cool, thanks for the info. If I'm there this weekend I'll have a 3-year-old with me, so 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.

[Brad Young]

Cool, thanks for the info. If I'm there this weekend I'll have a 3-year-old with me, so 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.

Yeah, I don't know... that three year old seems to have unlimited energy. I'll bet that she could do the hike easily and that it's really you that you are worried about moving over that much distance.

[looks easy from here]

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.

[Brad Young]

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.

[looks easy from here]

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

[Marco]

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.

[looks easy from here]

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.

[Tuff Chik]

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.

[looks easy from here]

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.

[Chris Henry]

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.