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Start at 1. Welcome to Bear Gulch

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Free audio tour7 stories

Moses Spring and Rim Trail, Pinnacles National Park, California

A narrated loop up Bear Gulch to the Bear Gulch Reservoir and back along the Rim Trail: a volcano that rode the San Andreas Fault 195 miles north, the talus caves and their bats, the people who built these trails, the frogs that came back to the reservoir, condors over the High Peaks, and the Chalon and Mutsun peoples whose homeland this is.

14 min of audio · 1 miles · Read the transcript

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    Getting started

    1. Start in the right placeThis tour begins at Welcome to Bear Gulch. Start at the trailhead; the first story plays when you arrive.
    2. Let's hear itUse headphones or the phone speaker at a comfortable volume. Download the tour while you still have signal.
    3. Stories meet you thereYour phone's location starts each story automatically. Music flows straight into the narration. Keep this page open; it keeps the screen awake for GPS.
    4. You're ready to exploreEast side of the park only: no road connects the east and west entrances. Park at the small Moses Spring Parking Area in Bear Gulch; there's no roadside parking. On spring weekends and holidays arrive before 8 am, or ride the seasonal weekend shuttle from Pinnacles Campground (late winter and spring only). Entrance fee is cashless; no pets on trails; carry water. Bear Gulch Cave is seasonal (the lower cave is usually open mid-July to mid-May, the whole cave closes mid-May to mid-July for the bats): check the cave status and bring a flashlight. Cell service is unreliable, so download first. Press Start at the trailhead. The loop is about a mile and a half.

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    Facts from the National Park Service (Pinnacles geology, caves, cave status, CCC, Native peoples, early settlers, present day, condor, bats, raptors, red-legged frog, plant and trail pages, the Moses Spring Trail field-trip guide) and the NPS administrative history The Heart of the Gabilans (2009). Trail geometry © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Music: Mozart, Andante cantabile from String Quartet K. 465, Musopen String Quartet via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Narration is AI-generated. Not an official National Park Service product.