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.

The five clear, swift, rocky streams that course through this Wilderness, which drain secluded hollows shadowed by steep and open ridges, plunge over several waterfalls, some of them dramatic cascades. A heavy forest cover of pine and hardwoods includes 536 acres of old growth that has been flourishing for more than a century. Wildflowers proliferate, and flowering shrubs include laurel, rhododendron, and flame azalea. Trout fishing may be excellent in the streams, but if your line keeps coming up empty, you can always snack on native blueberries. Problem is, you have to share the sweet fruit with black bears, who live here in greater numbers than anywhere else north of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Several trails crawl faintly up creek valleys until they gradually fade away altogether. Confusing old roadbeds appear and disappear just as suddenly, leading nowhere. All the designated trails are maintained to Wilderness standards. Squibb Creek Trail, in the extreme western section, travels 2.2 miles up Squibb Creek to a picturesque waterfall where the path dead-ends. Turkeypen Cove Trail forms a 4-mile loop with Middle Spring Ridge Trail providing nice views and some steep climbs. This could be your best opportunity to wander in solitude in a Tennessee Wilderness. Sampson Mountain, which peaks at 4,060 feet, anchors the Wilderness.

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 Sampson Mountain 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 Sampson Mountain Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

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 99-490

Date: October 16, 1986
Acreage: 8,319 acres

Tennessee Wilderness Act of 1986 - Public law 99-490 (10/16/1986) To designate certain lands in the Cherokee National Forest in the State of Tennessee as wilderness areas, and for other purposes

For more information (To download or see all affected Wilderness areas) visit our law library for 99-490 or legislative history for 99-490.

Public Law 115-334

Date: December 20, 2018
Acreage: 2,922 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.