Pinnacles West redux
John Pierce
Success!!!! Hooray!
"Thank you" to all members of the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club who took action concerning regaining access to Pinnacles National Park west entrance parking lot for nighttime stargazing. Honestly, I do not know if our collective efforts changed anything, but the desired result has been achieved.
In summary:
· 1. The automated entrance/exit gate at the west entrance of Pinnacles National Park has been repaired (one or two weeks ago).
· 2. The public may enter the park at the west entrance anytime up until 8:00pm. After that, the entrance gate will remain closed from the outside.
· 3. The proximity-sensor-activated gate will allow exiting the park at any time after 8:00pm.
· 4. Anyone wanting to stargaze from the west entrance parking lot must adhere to these park policies and rules:
· Enter the park before 8:00pm.
· Pay the park’s day use fee (or display an annual or lifetime national park visitor’s pass).
· No sleeping or camping anywhere on the west side of the park.
· While observing equipment may be set up on the asphalt (not in the dirt), there may not be any obstruction of vehicles driving through the parking lot.
· Visitors must comply with any request to move equipment so that the drive-through path is not obstructed.
All this appears to me to be the same rules that have been in place for many years. My takeaway is that the park never intended to lock the gate permanently, but that it had done that as a short-term solution until the automated gate had been repaired.
Below is an email thread between me and Pinnacles National Park, presented in chronological order (oldest to newest). You may interpret what I have been told by the park differently than how I have, but my conclusion is that all is well again for stargazing from the west entrance parking lot.
I plan to be there either March 20th or March 21st, for a "Messier Marathon".
Mark T.
Richard Ozer
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Lance Pickens
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Raymond Wong
Ray
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Jeff Crilly
On Feb 25, 2026, at 10:15 PM, Raymond Wong <wandering...@gmail.com> wrote:
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microflite
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