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.
The Sylvania Mountains are shared by California and Nevada, and the Wilderness starts on the desert floor and rises eastward over gradually rolling hills to rough and mountainous terrain reaching nearly 8,000 feet in height.
Sagebrush scrub dominates the vegetation on the east, and gives way to piñon pine and juniper at the higher elevations.
From the higher country, you can look south over the Last Chance Range into Death Valley National Park, north across dry Fish Lake Valley, and west to Piper Mountain–the sheer immensity of the region is a humbling experience.
You might see deer, chukar partridge, and bighorn sheep roaming about.
You won't see trails or water.
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 Sylvania Mountains 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: October 31, 1994
Acreage: 17,820 acres
California Desert Protection Act of 1994 - Public Law 103-433 (10/31/1994) "California Desert Protection Act of 1994" An Act to designate certain lands in the California Desert as wilderness, to establish the Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks, to establish the Mojave National Preserve, and for other purposes.
For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 103-433 or special provisions for 103-433 or legislative history for 103-433 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.