Hollister
– Presidents Day weekend marked the start of Pinnacles National
Monument’s busy season, and park visitors were out in force.
Hollister – Presidents Day weekend marked the start of Pinnacles National Monument’s busy season, and park visitors were out in force.
Carl Brenner, the park’s supervisor of interpretation and education, said rangers counted 448 people passing through the doors of the visitor center over the three-day holiday weekend. That’s pretty normal for this time of year, Brenner said, but a big step up from the doldrums of late December and early January, when the visitor center may see as few as five people on a particularly slow day.
Brenner said this year’s numbers are also an improvement over Presidents Day weekend last year. Overall, a combination of hot weather in February, snow in March and high gas prices year-round caused park visitation in 2006 to drop 8 percent from the year before.
The park’s busy season stretches from Presidents Day weekend in February to Memorial Day at the end of May. Brenner said most of the park’s visitors come out during the spring, when the weather is warm without being too hot, and the wildflowers are in bloom. In April, he said, there are normally 450 visitors on a typical weekend.
