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.

As recently as 1958, this area was part of the mainland, an eroding shoreline at the elbow of Cape Cod. Severe winter storms isolated Monomoy Point from the mainland, and twenty years later, North Monomoy Island was separated from South Monomoy Island. Today, ten miles of surf-beaten dunes line the eastern shores of the islands, with shifting sands sometimes reaching heights of 100 feet. These dunes give way to salt marshes and mudflats on the western shore, creating an ideal habitat for migratory birds.

Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge became a wildlife sanctuary in 1944 and spans 7,604 acres, with most of its northern island and all but two tracts of the southern island designated as wilderness. The mainland portion of the refuge remains non-wilderness. People have inhabited this area since 1711, and a lighthouse complex on the southern island is a testament to their presence. Among the migratory birds that can be spotted here are grebes, shearwaters, petrels, gannets, bitterns, egrets, herons, swans, geese, ducks, and the endangered piping plover and roseate tern. Hundreds of gray and harbor seals winter along the coastline, and boaters visit the shores in summer.

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 Monomoy 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.

Note: The boundaries of the Monomoy Wilderness are based on the location of the water line at the time the maps were created. This system is highly dynamic, as the sandy islands shift over time. The actual boundary for the wilderness area corresponds to wherever the mean low tide line exists, which continually moves.

Online Maps

Interactive Map of the Monomoy Wilderness
Google Earth

Massachusetts 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 91-504

Date: October 23, 1970
Acreage: 2,340 acres

(No official title, designates Fish and Wildlife Service wildernesses) - Public Law 91-504 (10/23/1970) To designate certain lands as wilderness within National Wildlife Refuges

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 91-504 or legislative history for 91-504.

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.