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.

Joyce Kilmer acquired some fame as a journalist, serving on the staff of the New York Times from 1913 to 1918, but most people remember him as the author of the poem "Trees" ("I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree"). He died in action in World War I. The 3,800 acres of North Carolina's Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest--perhaps the single most impressive growth of eastern virgin forest in the United States, with many trees hundreds of years old--is a part of Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness and borders Citico Creek Wilderness. Except for its northwestern section preserving the northwestern corner of Nantahala National Forest, this Wilderness is in North Carolina. Spared the keen edge of the ax when bankruptcy closed the local logging company in 1890, this Wilderness contains some magnificent old-growth forest, where oaks, hemlocks, and tulip poplars have reached six feet in diameter. The forest also includes yellow pine, sycamore, basswood, dogwood, beech, and oak, with a wild understory of shrubs, vines, ferns, mosses, lichens, liverworts, and herbaceous plants. Wildflowers bloom in spring sunshine but fade when the trees leaf out, darkening the forest floor. Six trailheads provide access to more than 60 miles of trail (in the entire Wilderness), which typically follow ridge tops or drop into the shady drainages. Camping is permitted anywhere in the Wilderness, but not at adjacent trail heads. Overnight parking is permitted at all trailheads except at the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Loop and Picnic Area. The Stiff Knee Trail (3.4 miles) follows Little Slickrock Creek across the Tennessee portion to a junction with the Slickrock Creek Trail (13.3 miles), longer and more beautiful than any trail in the entire Wilderness. You can see some of the best of the old growth along the Joyce Kilmer National Recreation Trail, a 1.2-mile path ambling through the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest.

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 Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock 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 Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

North Carolina Wildernesses
Tennessee 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 93-622

Date: January 3, 1975
Acreage: 15,000 acres

(Known as the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act) - Public law 93-622 (1/3/1975) To further the purposes of the Wilderness Act by designating certain acquired lands for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System, to provide for study of certain additional lands for such inclusion, and for other purposes

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 93-622 or special provisions for 93-622 or legislative history for 93-622.

Public Law 98-324

Date: June 19, 1984
Acreage: 2,980 acres

North Carolina Wilderness Act of 1984 - Public law 98-324 (6/19/1984) To designate certain public lands in North Carolina as additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 98-324 or legislative history for 98-324.

Public Law 115-334

Date: December 20, 2018
Acreage: 1,836 acres

Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 - Public law 115-334 (12/20/2018) To provide for the reform and continuation of agricultural and other programs of the Department of Agriculture through fiscal year 2023, and for other purposes.

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 115-334 or special provisions for 115-334 or legislative history for 115-334.

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.