Pinnacles National Park

This one star is for park management. We drove 3 hours from home and arrived at the park at 10am on Friday in April 12, 2024. After leaving the visitor center, we followed the staff's instructions and headed to Bear Gulch. This is the park's most famous attraction. There are three parking lots near the Bear Gulch. There are less than 50 parking spaces, and no parking spaces were found in these three parking lots. We drove back and forth between these three parking lots 4 times and still couldn't find a parking space. We looked back to see if we could park on the roadside, but the roadside was very narrow and we couldn't park at all. We drove back 2-2.5 miles and found a larger parking lot, but there was still no space in the parking lot.
Then We had to go back to Bear Gulch again to see if there was parking, but there wasn't. We found a spot big enough to park a car under a tree in Moses Spring Parking Area, and there were no "no-parking" signs around. We thought it looked totally appropriate to park there. We moved a small rock and parked under a tree, and my car was completely off the road.
when We returned to the parking lot at 12.45AM, and the staff gave us a ticket of $ 80, saying that we were parking illegally. I said there are no no parking signs here. I told him it took us 3 hours to drive to the park and another 45 minutes to find a parking spot. Entry to the park costs $30. If there is no parking space in the park. Why doesn't the park provide shutter for tourists ? Why not tell us there is no parking space and let us buy a ticket to enter the park? He claims that if there is no parking, you have to wait or leave the park to go somewhere else. When you enter the park, you must purchase a ticket. You'll be fined if you don't park in the parking space. If you have any objections, you can appeal to the court. This was a very rude, unwelcome and ridiculous experience.

READ READ READ!! Trip was overall good but read for fair warning about park, this review has nothing to do with the natural beauty of the park but is about the experience with the park rangers and logistics of the park as a whole. We drove to the park and around 12 pm pulled into a long line of cars waiting to enter, after waiting sometime we made it to the park rangers who were turning every car around, stating that the park was full and no body was getting let in. After politely asking if we couldn't wait or why they don't state anything about park access denial on the website we were met with aggression and hostility from the park ranger. We were told come back around 4 pm(not enough time to hike at that point). Even campers and rvs with reservations got turned around. Disappointed we drove down the road and ate our lunch very sad. Luckily we decided we would park in a dirt pull off half a mile up the road from entrance. We started hiking the 2 mile hike into the campground, the park ranger told us everyone would get tickets and it was illegal to park there(it is not illegal to park in pull offs in California) knowing this we continued forward. We were surprised to see plenty of open spots in the lot at the campground, it wasn't full at all!

We took the free shuttle to a trail head and had a great although short hike, last shuttle left trail head at 5 pm. We got in line at 4 pm and waited for 50 minutes, by 4:50 the line was still big and we were next up to board the shuttle, at this point the shuttle driver pulled up in the middle of the lot and yelled, anyone who is a driver board the bus, everyone cut line and swarmed the bus, I ran over and barely muscled my way on. We listened to angry old shuttle driver yell at passengers all the way back to the campground. Luckily we made the best of the situation and the day went alright. No cars got tickets ranger completely made that up and lied about the law.

I've gone to national parks my whole life, never have I had such a poor experience with the rangers or park system. They need to just make reservations to control how many people enter, we drove 5 hours and barely were able to get in. We saw 50+ cars wait in line for hours while there were open spots. Am extreme waste of many peoples time and money. Hopefully they figure out a better system like other parks.

Added some photos to show the beauty of the park

Actually love this park! It is soooo beautiful. However my review is focused on the two rangers that work this park on the less popular west side entrance. Never have I ever encountered rangers who were rude and unhelpful. I've been to Pinnacles before so I know what the main visitor center area looks like. However, this time I punched in the park to my navigation thinking there is only one entrance. I quickly discovered there are two entrances and my navigation for some reason took me to the less popular entrance. The west side entrance I recently went to I did not recognize. I pulled into the parking area in front of the ranger standing out front. I got out of the car and let him know I think I am lost and asked him if there are two visitor centers in this park. He said no. We opened up the map and I pointed to two visitor centers on the map and he said oh yeah there is another. ok. So I ask him how long will it take me to get to the correct visitor center. 1 hr driving. Needless to say, I was going to be really late meeting my friends for a hike. though somehow I got one bar of service to text that I won't make it in time but they said come anyway and they will do a little hike to start in the meantime. So I headed back to my car where another ranger would not let me speak when I was trying to tell him I am lost but he was already writing me a ticket for pulling over at the visitor center. This guy was the biggest dick I ever met. I have been to many a national park and In my past experiences with National parks rangers they are very nice and helpful, esp when you are lost. This ranger made one of my favorite places attached to an unpleasant memory. This dude should be fired for real. And the ranger that supposed to help people either needs to understand the park better or get a different job. lol

This one star is for park management. We drive out and booked accommodations nearby to hike all day in the park on Saturday. It would have been our first visit and we had purchased the national park pass for the occasion. We arrive to the park and are #8 in a line of #25 cars. No sign saying they are full, no staff member letting anyone know what is going on, just a long line of uninformed and confused visitors. We stayed there for a while as people started just making u-turns and leaving due to the lack of information. A waste of 4 hours of driving, a night of accommodations and very let down.

10/17/20 - Beautiful hiking trails. Giving this place a 1 because of customer service. The elderly girl who cleaned the bathrooms this morning behind the visitor center was rude. She probably woke up on the wrong side of the bed because I don't know what crawled up her butt. She had the "caution wet floor" sign up. We walked into the bathroom and she said, "you shouldn't be in here. I have a sign that says closed outside." I was confused and pointed it out, "it doesn't say closed. It says caution wet floor." She responded back with, "well, you shouldn't come in here anyway when there's a sign up."

WTF?! That was rude. I see this yellow "caution wet floor" sign in offices, businesses, restaurants, stores, other restrooms and etc and no one closes a building down unless it says "closed." Girl, if you made a mistake, simply apologize. That rude response was disrespectful when the mistake was yours! Park boss, put your workers in check because that was rude, uncalled for and disrespectful.

At the east entrance, the park employee said there were no parking spots left inside and it would take 2 hours in traffic to enter. However, he claimed that he would ticket or tow every car that was parked off the street at the entrance where the main road was (dozens of cars were parked there off road and people would walk the 1.5-2 mile hike to enter and he said he would ticket or tow them all even though it looks completely appropriate to park there). He said the only options were to drive for 2 hours into the park (and not be able to park anywhere) or leave the park and go somewhere else. This was a very rude, unwelcoming, and ridiculous experience.

I am really annoyed with the management here. We decided to make a pretty hefty detour here in the afternoon to go hiking for an hour or two before sunset. The parking fee is $25. This is good for a week, but we only needed one hour and there's no other payment option! What an enormous rip-off! And there's some sign that says that the change in pricing from $15 to $25 was "discussed and approved at a town hall meeting"--what town? It's a national park!

By the way, this parking fee is not included in camping fees.

There was no way we were paying $25 for just over an hour of hiking, and there was an obvious security vehicle just waiting to give us a ticket. Even if we were willing to pay so much, we got here at about 5:05 PM, right after the visitor center closed (at 5PM). This meant that we would have to pay for parking with exact cash, which of course we did not have. Self-pay parking meters that take credit cards are ubiquitous now, why can't they install one for the visitor center?

Anyway, from what I saw driving through the park to the visitor center, it was nothing special.

We had a very bad experience of this park. We visited this park on a long weekend. There was more people visited this park. The parking lot is very small and makes a lot of people need to parking their cars outside of this park and walking a long way to the park, and then take shuttle to The Bear Gulch area (the main attraction). The last shuttle was 5pm, but when we went to the shuttle stop at 3:40pm, a guy at The Bear Gulch parking lot came to ask us if we willing to have driver take to shuttle to drive our car back to pick up the rest of our family. Since we were parking far away from the gate, and everyone was exhausting after hiking the trail, we think it's not a good idea to do this way. So we decided to take the shuttle together. When our family went into the shuttle, the guy start blaming us that we shouldn't take the shuttle. He start yelling to our kids and force them sit on the armrest. Each one of us felt angry and humiliated! What's wrong with the staff? We got blamed because we don't follow his will? How can a national park staff act so rude to the visitors? My kids was so frightened!! They told me they will never come to this park again.

Rude staff! Plus, the park is not organized at all for the number of visitors. The Bear Gulch area (ie the main attraction) parking lot fills up fast so visitors are forced to take a shuttle. I thought ok fine, the shuttle system in Yosemite and Seki work great. The bus rolls up and it's tiny for the number of people in line. My friends and I get on and sit down. Then a senior couple get on so we stand up and head to the back. The bus driver yelled "no standing!" and kicked us off! We had to walk 2 miles. The bus driver kept letting people on even though he knew that not everyone would fit. He saw that it was full and seemed to relish the fact that we had to get off. Then after we hiked for the day and hopped on the bus to go back, guess what? Standing is no problem! They let everyone on. The park is really poorly managed especially related to transit. They need to train their staff. Very rude people.

The most inefficiently ran NP that I've been to, and I've been to over half. To be honest, it may have been due to mistakenly visiting during New Years weekend. I've visited Pinnacles about 5-6 times and this time was horrible! This is the first time I've visited and they had the shuttle service to get to the trailheads.

I got to the park at 12:30 pm, went in the visitor center showed my America the Beautiful pass put my receipt in my car and stood in line for the shuttle. As I was parking I saw a small shuttle pick up 15-20 people. Leaving a good 40-50 still in line. I joined at the end. Waited about 20 mins. And saw another small shuttle pick up another 15-20 people. By then it was 1. By the amount of time between shuttles (20 mins.) and how few people each van took it was obvious it was going to be another 40 mins. to an hour before I'd be at the trailhead. I'd be starting at 2. The shuttles stop at 5 pm. I was hoping to do the High Peaks trail. A 9 mile hike lasting about 5 hrs. With no shuttles after 5 I'd be finishing the hike in the dark and having an additional mile or 2 hike to get back to the visitor center parking lot. I literally sat in line for 30 mins. and left. Wasted 5 hrs round tip drive.

Basically, if you're visiting on a weekend and can't get to the park in the early to mid morning don't bother visiting. I was extremely disappointed. I've been here since it became a National Park and didn't notice any increase in visitor compared to when it was a National Monument. It was better as a National Monument. Maybe the words got out and visitors are increasing. I'm sure some of my negative experience was due to it being a holiday weekend and not getting there early. Don't make the same mistake as I did.

It's going to be a long time before I try and visit Pinnacles again.