Visit Wilderness

Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, Minnesota

Why Visit Wilderness?

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.

Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.

Prior to 1930, before loggers had worked their way through the area, longleaf pine, beech, oak, and magnolia trees supported a vigorous turpentine industry. Today, Indian Mounds Wilderness safeguards a few acres of lovely old-growth trees near the edge of the Toledo Bend Reservoir, close enough to the state line to lose a few pine-cones to Louisiana with a favoring wind. The trees around the reservoir vary, with loblolly and shortleaf pines on the periphery and hardwoods marking drainages created by Indian Creek, Bull Creek, and Hurricane Bayou. You may even find a mature grove of American beech trees or the fabulous yellow lady's slipper (a member of the orchid family). One thing you probably won't see is the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker--the colony that lies in the area has been inactive for years. Both the Indian Mounds Recreation Area, outside the southeastern border, and the Wilderness are named for their unusual "hills," once thought to be the handiwork of a prehistoric people and later confirmed to be the result of natural processes. The Wilderness is cut like a jigsaw puzzle into seven sections along three non-Wilderness roads and a gas-pipeline corridor. Abandoned roads offer hiker and horse access, and boats can get to parts of the area via the reservoir.

Leave No Trace

How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the Indian Mounds Wilderness.

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.

Location

Maps

Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Indian Mounds Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

Texas Wildernesses

Printed Maps

Fetching MyTopo from Database

USGS Store

Rules & Regulations

Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.

Wilderness-Specific Regulations

Learn more about why regulations may be necessary in wilderness.

Contacts

Applicable Wilderness Law(s)

Public Law 98-574

Date: October 30, 1984
Acreage: 9,946 acres

Texas Wilderness Act of 1984 - Public law 98-574 (10/30/1984) To designate various areas as components of the National Wilderness Preservation System in the national forests in the state of Texas

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 98-574 or special provisions for 98-574 or legislative history for 98-574.

Public Law 99-584

Date: October 29, 1986
Acreage: 283 acres

Texas Wilderness Act Amendments of 1986 - Public law 99-584 (10/29/1986) To adjust the boundaries of areas of the National Wilderness Preservation System in the state of Texas

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 99-584 or special provisions for 99-584 or legislative history for 99-584.

Public Law 113-291

Date: December 19, 2014
Acreage: 0 acres

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 - Public law 113-291 (12/19/2014) To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2015 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes.

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 113-291 or special provisions for 113-291 or legislative history for 113-291.

Want to Volunteer for Wilderness?

People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management. Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.