Pinnacles Campground

Everywhere I looked I thought, "I can't believe I'm seeing this gorgeous thing." The campground itself is clean and tidy with well-maintained bathrooms. The visitor center and store are excellent and there's always people available with knowledge about the area to help you plan your hiking adventures. Tons of wildlife right in the campground - raccoons, rabbits, quail, crows, a bobcat in broad daylight, deer, and the list goes on and on.

My only critique is that the pool closes at 5:00, which feels really early when you're just getting back from a long hike in the hottest part of the day and could have used that cool off opportunity.

Great campground with lots of animal visits, especially at morning and night! We saw deers and bunnies having breakfast right by our campsite when we woke up. Raccoons come in at night to steal food and they are adorable, but I'd suggest having dinner while the sun is still out and don't leave any food scraps if you don't want to have to fight them, because they don't budge lol
The restrooms are close by and they are always clean. They have a water bottle filling station with cold water. There's also a pool at the visitor center with cold water too, which was great to use after a hot day filled with hikes. There are showers too.
The visitor center and store has free wifi for the first 30min.

Beautiful site and such cool wildlife

Great place for stargazing and hiking. Pinnacles are amazing.
I wish the fire pits were available to use but we understand these restrictions during hot weather.
The nature is beautiful here, a lot of animals and birds can be seen especially in the morning.
Free of charge showers are available as well as a small swimming pool but we didn't use it as most of the time it was overcrowded. We preferred hiking and chilling at our camping spot.

Beautiful , stars were amazing 🫠 very clean and the pool was just what was needed. Definitely will be back

We expected it to be hot when visiting in August, but didn't expect the excessive amount of raccoons that surrounded our campsite as the sun went down. They were aggressive, ripping a hole in our tent and going in and snatching a pair of pants. There were at least 20 raccoons that had no problem intruding in on our space - despite having all of our food and toiletries locked in the locker. It was so bad, we had to leave. Then the latch on the locker broke. And did I mention that the pool is only open until 5pm? That was not noted on the reservation, despite it still being so hot AND it was summer. Also, there are NO STAFF after 5pm. No park staff, no camping staff. Just some phone numbers posted that you could call if there was an emergency. But you have to leave your campsite, walk or drive to the store and then find the posted numbers. Not exactly helpful in an emergency. And the group sites were not group friendly. Almost all of them have 2 levels, with the camping portion down a flight of stairs that are built in to the hill. If you camp at the ONE (#129) that doesn't have a huge hill and is nicely shaded, you'll run into the raccoons! Because it was so hot, our plan was to hike first thing in the morning. But the Bear Gulch Cave was closed (despite being 3 weeks after the estimated opening). I get it - can't predict the nesting habits of the bats, but it was still disappointing. Because we ditched the campsite and stayed in Paso Robles, we weren't there first thing in the morning, so it was too hot to hike to the other cave. Besides the hike to the caves, there wasn't much to see/do.

Beautiful place to spend some time camping, hiking, and enjoying the vast wilderness. We were lucky enough to see over a dozen California Condors flying and perched up on the high peaks trail! We stayed in tent cabin 80 which was amazing as usual although one power outlet was a bit faulty and would sometimes not provide power. The only negative experience we had was a very angry and deranged sounding man in the neighboring campsite to ours. He was hysterically yelling at what we determined along with the park ranger to be a racoon. The man was heard yelling over and over again for the animal to get away from him in a raging episode followed by what we assumed was gunfire or at least repeated battering with some sort of metallic weapon and it sounded like he even hurt the animal. We did not take lightly to this event and called both the sheriff and the park ranger but they were unable to find anything. The man in the campsite denied any involvement in this situation or even hearing any commotion that night but we were later updated by the ranger that the man admitted to "harshly shooing away the racoon." It was a frightening incident and we ended up leaving to a nearby hotel for the night and returning the following morning for our belongings. This was not at all the park's fault or the staff's fault in any way. Officer Faye did an incredible job of doing his due diligence and trying to reassure that we were safe as well as providing constant updates. He ensured we felt heard and did not ever make us feel like we were mistaken. Once again not the park's fault at all and really just an unfortunate situation. We look forward to our next stay at Pinnacles National Park and hope for better luck!

Efficient checking with clean and spacious tent cabin. In August, it can be very warm in the afternoon. Hike early and stay in the shade for the afternoon.

There seemed to be a lot more open campsites at the end of the day than the reservation site seemed to indicate - and several would have been preferable to the one I snagged.
Raccoons were very aggressive - and the lock box at my site was broken.
Was not able to check out anything outside the campground since I had a dog - but I knew that before coming. My primary objective was to watch the Perseids under dark skies - which would have happened if not for clouds rolling in.

We were in site 40 and 41B. Excellent sites with shade, next to the creek. The campground has free showers and an excellent swimming pool.
Be very aware of the bandit Racoons! They opened (unzipped) one of our tent and took everything out (a duffle bag, AirPods, purse) and threw in the creek site. They also cut of my friends sleeping mat (which could not be fixed) . They are cute but super annoying needless to say. Put everything in the car or safe. We saw deer, quail, wild turkeys, raccoons and cottontail rabbits. They are not afraid of campers. Overall it was an excellent experience.