Refreshment

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, my God.” (Psalm 42:1)

Pinnacles National Park was the only place I remember feeling hot during our tour of the California parks. Although the temperatures occasionally reached the eighties in Yosemite and Sequoia, it always felt fairly pleasant due to the low humidity. Pinnacles made up for it.

We, of course, ended up at Pinnacles on the hottest day of our trip. To make matters worse, we didn’t reach the park until the mid-afternoon when temperatures were at their peak. But we arrived prepared to be hot. As a newly designated national park, we expected it to have limited shade and facilities. And we had read the warning on the NPS website: “During the summer, extreme temperatures can make hiking uncomfortable at best, and possibly dangerous for those who are unprepared.”

Water was the one comfort measure available to us there. It seemed like the majority of the park’s visitors were splashing about in a pool at the welcome area. The kids would have gladly joined them and called it a day. But we had come to see the talus caves, and that required us to do some hiking. So we chugged some pre-hike hydration and then refilled all of the water bottles. When the kids asked to drench their heads before heading out, we originally said not to waste precious water. But when we came across another water spigot not long after leaving the parking lot, we changed our mind. It felt much better to have soaking wet hats dripping down our backs.

Once we made it to the caves, the temperatures cooled off significantly. So that by the time we reached our destination at the Bear Gulch Reservoir the kids didn’t put up too much of a fuss when we wouldn’t let them jump in. However, there were several unsupervised young men taking the plunge. Leaping wildly from the rocks and into the water.

On the one hand, it seemed like insanity considering there was no telling how deep the reservoir was or whether or not the jumpers would break their legs on rocks just below the surface. But on the other hand, maybe we were the crazy ones, missing out on a wonderfully refreshing opportunity.