Introduction
The United States Congress designated the Machesna Mountain Wilderness (
map) in 1984 and it now has a total of
19,882 acres.
All of this wilderness is located in
California and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service.
Description
From a low point of about 1,600 feet, this Wilderness climbs to the 4,063-foot summit of Machesna Mountain in the southwest section. This is a scenic area, with the scenery getting finer the higher you venture until you can make out the snowcapped Sierra Nevada in the distance. Here in the La Panza mountain range, three-fourths of the area is chaparral brushland, roughly another 10 percent is pine-crowned peaks and majestic rocky crags, and the rest consists of an oak-dotted grassland. A 1,500-acre section has been set aside for the study of a unique strain of Coulter pine. American Canyon is the region's major drainage. You may see deer, mountain lions, or black bears, but Machesna is best known as critical habitat for the protection of the California condor. Human use is light on the two trails: the American Canyon and the Machesna Mountain, both approximately eight miles long. Primarily national forestland, the Wilderness has about 120 acres that fall under Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction.
