Pinnacles National Park
Pinnacles National Park is a national park of the United States protecting a mountainous area located east of the Salinas Valley in Central California, about east of Soledad and southeast of San Jose. The park's namesake pinnacles are the eroded leftovers of the western half of an extinct volcano that has moved from its original location on the San Andreas Fault, embedded in a portion of the California Pacific Coast Ranges. Pinnacles is managed by the National Park Service and the majority of the park is protected as wilderness.
The national park is divided by the rock formations into East and West Divisions, connected only by foot trails. The east side has shade and water, while the west has high walls. The rock formations provide for spectacular pinnacles that attract rock climbers. The park features unusual talus caves that house at least 13 species of bats. Pinnacles is most often visited in spring or fall because of the intense heat during the summer. Park lands are prime habitat for prairie falcons and are a release site for California condors that have been hatched in captivity.
Pinnacles was originally established as a national monument in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, and was redesignated as a national park in 2013 by Congress.
History
Native Americans in the Pinnacles region comprised the Chalon and Mutsun groups of the Ohlone people, who left stone artifacts in the park. These native people declined with the arrival of the Spanish in the 18th century, who brought novel diseases and changes to the natives' way of life. The establishment of a Spanish mission at Soledad hastened the area's native depopulation through disease and dispersion. Archaeological surveys have found 13 sites inhabited by Native Americans, 12 of which antedate the establishment of the missions. One site is believed to be about 2000 years old. The last Chalon had died or departed from the area by 1810. From 1810 to 1865, when the first Anglo-American settlers arrived, the Pinnacles region was a wilderness without human use or habitation.By the 1880s the Pinnacles, then known as the Palisades, were visited by picnickers from the surrounding communities who would explore the caves and camp. The first account of the Pinnacles region appeared in print in 1881, describing the Balconies area. Between 1889 and 1891, newspaper articles shifted from describing excursions to the "Palisades" to calling them the "Pinnacles". Interest in the area rose to the point that the Hollister Free Lance sent a reporter to the Pinnacles, followed two months later by a party of local officials. Investors came from San Francisco to consider placing a resort hotel there, but the speculation came to nothing. In 1894, a post office was established in Bear Valley. Schuyler Hain was the postmaster. Since at least one other Bear Valley was in California, the post office was named "Cook" after Hain's wife's maiden name. In 1924, the post office was renamed "Pinnacles".
Hain was a homesteader who arrived in the Pinnacles area in 1891 from Michigan, following his parents and eight siblings to Bear Valley. His cousin, A. W. White, was a student at Stanford University, and White brought G. K. Gilbert, one of his professors, to see the Pinnacles in 1893. Gilbert was impressed by the scenery, and his comments inspired Hain to publicize the region. Hain led tours to Bear Valley and through the caves, advocating the preservation of the Pinnacles. Hain's efforts resulted in a 1904 visit by Stanford president David Starr Jordan, who contacted Fresno Congressman James C. Needham. Jordan and Needham, in turn, influenced Gifford Pinchot to advocate the establishment of the Pinnacles Forest Reserve to President Theodore Roosevelt, who proclaimed the establishment on July 18, 1906. Pinchot, who was primarily interested in the management of forests for productive use rather than for preservation, advocated the use of the recently passed Antiquities Act to designate the scenic core of the area as Pinnacles National Monument, which was done by Roosevelt on January 16, 1908. This designation nominally passed control of the Pinnacles from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior, but the U.S. Forest Service retained effective control of the area until circa 1911.
In his efforts to promote the Pinnacles, Hain became convinced that the Pinnacles were an "extraordinary mountain" described by Captain George Vancouver and pictured by John Sykes in his book Voyage of Discovery, which documented the Vancouver Expedition. Hain began to refer to the mountain as "Vancouver's Pinnacles", a term that was picked up by Sunset in a 1903 article. References to "Vancouver's Pinnacles" persisted until 1955, when analysis of the Sykes picture indicated that the mountain described by Vancouver was actually located near Fort Ord, within easy reach of the day trip described by Vancouver.
National monument
First set aside as part of the Pinnacles Forest Reserve in 1906, Pinnacles has had several different federal management agencies, ranging from the U.S. Forest Service to the United States General Land Office and ultimately to the National Park Service. In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt created Pinnacles National Monument with the power given him in the Antiquities Act of 1906. The initial area designated under the Antiquities Act was. The Forest Service relinquished control of the monument circa 1911, but no operating agency yet existed to receive it. No drivable roads existed into the park from communities like Hollister. Hollister boosters campaigned for federal funds for road-building. Congressman Everis A. Hayes made a trip into the Pinnacles in 1913 as part of the campaign for road funds. By 1914, primitive roads extended to Bear Valley.The National Park Service was finally established in 1916, but Pinnacles was not considered significant enough to command any Park Service resources at that time. In the meantime, a mining claim disrupted access to the traditional picnic grounds. In 1922, following repeated pleas from local residents for Park Service action, W.B. Lewis, superintendent of Yosemite National Park, was directed to visit Pinnacles and report on the circumstances to Park Service director Stephen Mather. Lewis had a difficult trip and stayed only 45 minutes, and his report included a recommendation that the monument be abandoned, since the most scenic sections were in private hands. The General Land Office, which administered lands surrounding the national monument and what was then known as Monterey National Forest, also received complaints, and in December 1922, J.H. Favorite of the GLO made a thorough report which was copied to Mather. Favorite recommended that public-domain lands be consolidated into the monument, and that a caretaker be appointed from a local homestead. In 1923, Herman Hermansen was appointed caretaker, and on May 7, 1923, the monument was enlarged by proclamation of President Warren G. Harding.
Mather finally visited the monument on March 28, 1924. A further proclamation, this time by Calvin Coolidge, enlarged the monument on July 2, 1924, securing water sources and campsites, was followed by a directive for a complete survey of the now- monument. Following a visit by NPS assistant director Horace M. Albright, money was appropriated to build a ranger's cabin, completed in 1929, while facilities within the caves were improved. Frank A. Kittredge, the Park Service chief of engineering, and Thomas Chalmers Vint, Park Service landscape architect, conducted a survey for a five-year improvement plan in 1927. In 1929, condemnation proceedings were filed against private landowners in and around the park, including the mining company, seeking. An expansion proclamation by President Herbert Hoover in 1931 added of land donated by San Benito County. Trail building was expanded in the early 1930s, including a tunnel for the High Peaks Trail.
In 1933, a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was established for about 200 men who worked on additions to the trail network. After lengthy legal proceedings, the old mining claims were incorporated into the monument in 1958. CCC laborers improved the road in Bear Gulch, built tourist cabins, and constructed the dam at the Bear Gulch reservoir. A fire lookout was built by the CCC on Chalone Peak in 1935, but was destroyed by fire in 1951 and replaced by a frame structure the following year. The park's visitor center and headquarters were built in 1936–37 from local stone. A superintendent's residence was started in 1941 and completed in 1949. The Mission 66 project added lands and new projects, with an emphasis on development of the previously undeveloped west side of the park.
In 1975, the park comprised, growing to the present through a series of additions including the Pinnacles Ranch. The most recent addition to the Pinnacles National Monument was president Bill Clinton's Proclamation 7266 in the year 2000 that increased the size of the monument by and to include more caves.
National park status
Legislation authored by Rep. Sam Farr to make Pinnacles National Monument a national park passed the United States Senate on December 30, 2012, having passed the House on July 31, 2012. The bill also designates the present Pinnacles Wilderness as the Hain Wilderness in commemoration of Schuyler Hain's efforts to establish the national monument. The legislation was signed by President Barack Obama on January 10, 2013. The change in designation did not change the park's status, management, or purpose. The U.S. Congress specified in the 1970 General Authorities Act and the 1978 Redwood Act that all units of the National Park System are to be treated on equal status, regardless of title. Pinnacles is the ninth unit in the National Park System in California to be named a national park.Geography
Pinnacles National Park lies about inland from the Pacific Ocean and about south of the San Francisco Bay Area. The park is in the southern portion of the Gabilan Range, part of California's Coast Ranges.Elevation within the boundaries range from at the peak of North Chalone Peak.