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.

Native Americans called it a pocosin, which in their language meant "swamp on a hill." A more accurate assessment of this seemingly flat area that rises slightly in the center might be "raised bog."

Over thousands of years, organic matter (basically black muck) accumulated to form a pocosin, an area highly acidic and deficient in nutrients that produces a unique biological occurrence. The thickness of the muck varies from several inches at the edge to several feet at the center.

Growth on the outer rim is typically pond pine with a dense understory of titi, the shrub Zenobia (unique to pocosins), and an impenetrable jungle of greenbrier vines. Toward the center of the waterlogged goo, trees thin and grow more stunted, and shrubs and vines diminish, their tangled roots providing the only footing.

You'll find the trailless Pocosin Wilderness in Croatan National Forest near the coast of North Carolina.

People come to see the flora (no other national forest boasts the insectivorous Venus flytrap) and fauna, but there is no place to camp or even easily hike through the muck. Avian life abounds here on the Atlantic Flyway, with many water-related birds, hawks, owls, woodpeckers, and flycatchers. Biting insects also thrive, along with alligators and poisonous snakes.

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 Pocosin 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 Pocosin Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

North Carolina 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 98-324

Date: June 19, 1984
Acreage: 11,000 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.

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.