Pinnacles

The required photo at any park entrance

California Condors playing in the updrafts

Been busy road-tripping, working, organizing, and playing in the might-as-well-be-summer sun.  The most recent adventure was to Pinnacles National Monument.  Mountains, caves, climbing, fault lines, plate tectonics, lizards, cute California quail, and condors...what's not to love?!  Plus, it was one of the first places to get its national monument status in 1908 (if you're a nerd about park history...this is impressive).

The condors were especially great to see since they're doing pretty well at Pinnacles.  They're on the critically endangered list, and back in the late 1980s there were only 22 condors left!  Thanks to several breeding programs in the west and southwest, these condors, though still at risk, are slowly making a comeback.  We hiked to the top of what was called Condor Gulch and saw 6 flying right above our heads!  We could see them checking us out as they passed overhead which was super cool.

On our way further up, we saw a condor perched on a rock.  After watching it for awhile, it spread its 9 foot wingspan and just hung out like that for about 5 minutes.  We wondered what the hell he was doing, and then quickly found out.  A female condor flew to the rock ledge and they proceeded to mate.  So basically, our condor dude was saying, "Hey, look at this wingspan.  Pretty sexy, huh?"  Female condor apparently thought so!  So yay condors!  Make some babies cause there are still not a ton of you out there!  The middle section of mediocre photos is the visual for this part of the story, fyi.

I'm constantly amazed and impressed by the things that I get to experience on a daily basis.  Life is pretty rad, eh?  And someday I'll write a post about the peregrine falcons, cause those little buddies are pretty near and dear to my heart!  We've got to save something for later though...yes?!