Visit Wilderness
Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.
Why Visit Wilderness?
Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.
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Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.
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.
Paddy Creek Wilderness was first logged in the early 1800s by Sylvester Paddy and later homesteaded and used as open range until the 1930s. This Wilderness is shaped by Big Paddy and Little Paddy Creeks, which flow through steep cliffs and rocky outcroppings before joining the Big Piney River near the eastern boundary. The creeks run most of the year, lined by forests of black, white, and post oaks, hickories, and shortleaf pine.
Unique karst features like caves and rock formations highlight the area's Ozark Highlands topography. Wildlife typical of the Missouri Ozarks, including deer, wild turkeys, foxes, and bobcats, is abundant. Eighteen miles of minimally marked trails cross the wilderness, so maps and a compass are recommended. Travel is by foot or horseback only, as motorized and mechanized vehicles are prohibited.
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 Paddy Creek Wilderness.
For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.
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.
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.
Date: January 3, 1983
Acreage: 6,888 acres
Paddy Creek Wilderness Act of 1981 - Public law 97-407 (1/3/1983) To designate certain lands in the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri, which comprise approximately six-thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight acres, and which are generally depicted on a map entitled "Paddy Creek Wilderness Area", as a component of the National Wilderness Preservation System
For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 97-407 or legislative history for 97-407 for this law.
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.