Pinnacles National Park
The Office of Accountability goes camping! We’ve been having monthly meetings with this group for a couple years now. We set goals and meet to go over those goals, keeping each other accountable, hence the name. But for June, we decided to take the show on the road! We took two cars down to Pinnacles National Park, just two hours south of where we all live, and we got to enjoy nature and being off the grid for the day. See a little recap below!
Eileen models for me at the park entrance. And we debate the merits of a shorter but more exposed vs. a longer but flatter and more shaded hike… It was 98 degrees that day and we still went for it… longer and shaded wins the day.
Setting up camp with our big oak tree.
Six miles in 98 degree heat? We’ve got this.
So many wildflowers!
Taking plenty of breaks in the shade.
The iconic pinnacles, funky-looking rock formed from volcanoes and tectonic plate movements millions of years ago.
Best part of the hike! Ducking out of the heat into this wonderful cave. It almost felt like air conditioning.
This is what happens when you bring six photographers (and a designer) on your hike… we light a cave photo perfectly with head lamps! If you look closely in the bottom center, you can see the headlamps sittin on the rocks. I also hiked with my baby tripod so we could set these photos up.
Departing the cave and going back out into the sunshine.
One more group photo!
Beautiful scenes… I just think about how much we were melting at this point.
Phew! Eventually we made it back and all jumped in the pool! And we settled in at the campsite for the night. There were so many bunnies around! And a gopher, lots of turkey vultures, crows, a deer, and more.
We did actually have our accountability meeting too.
Gourmet campfire dining!
Sleeping under the stars.
Love.
I was awoken at 5am by the cacophony of birds and frogs outside, followed by screaming teenagers with complete disregard for their neighbors. But alas. It was quite lovely when we all eventually actually got up! And Cassie made us a delicious egg scramble for breakfast.
A leisurely morning wrapping up and checking out.
I did a little watercolor sketch. And then we took some last group photos…. before realizing that Lindsey almost stepped on a baby rattlesnake!
Not that you can really see it in this photo, but here we marked it off with branches and are examining the rattlesnake from a safe distance… Very glad no one got bit!
And then it was time to get back up to the Bay! Such a wonderful trip. Let’s do it again some time!
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She creates beautiful, soft, and timeless imagery while capturing the most fleeting of moments. View her work at annawu.com, follow her daily adventures on instagram, and contact her to book your own session today.
