"PAICINES -- With a California condor overhead and history underfoot, hundreds of people gathered beneath a canopy of blue skies Monday to celebrate an accomplishment almost as rare as statehood itself: the dedication of America's 59th national park."

"Pinnacles National Park, a geologic snapshot of the tectonic forces that shape the lay of the land, was embraced by schoolchildren, Native American tribal leaders and high government officials as both a protection of the past and a preservation of the future.

'Today, Pinnacles is no longer a monument, it is a national park,' U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. 'It is iconic in the same way as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite and Yellowstone and Acadia.'"

Jason Hoppin reports for the Santa Cruz Sentinel February 11, 2013. [2]