More than 80% of the park is designated as the Pinnacles Wilderness (15,985 acres or 6,469 hectares), which provides even higher protection for the rock spires that give Pinnacles its name, as well as Chalone Peak, the highest peak in the Gabilan Range, and includes the creeks and canyons that are habitat for the endangered red-legged frog. The United States Congress in 1976 enacted Public Law 94-567, adding Pinnacles Wilderness and several others to the National Wilderness Preservation System.
Read more about this topic: Pinnacles National Monument
Famous quotes containing the word wilderness:
“What is most striking in the Maine wilderness is the continuousness of the forest, with fewer open intervals or glades than you had imagined. Except the few burnt lands, the narrow intervals on the rivers, the bare tops of the high mountains, and the lakes and streams, the forest is uninterrupted.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)