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:
“It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a few rods of the river, the marks of an axe, made by lumberers who have either camped here or driven logs past in previous springs. You will see perchance where, going on the same errand that you do, they have cut large chips from a tall white pine stump for their fire.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)