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 power of water and time is nowhere more clearly articulated than on the walls, cliffs and buttresses that comprise the Black Canyon Wilderness. Countless millennia of the Colorado River's diligent carving have created a truly spectacular landscape of indescribable scale. With sheer cliff walls towering over narrow slot canyons, countless waterfalls smoothing and cutting deeper into the limestone and immense walls dominating the terrain, this wilderness is as rugged as they come.
Navigating the meandering canyons can be intimidating and confusing, so take your time and be aware of where you are. The utmost care must be given to every step when traversing and down-climbing the chutes.
Also, there are some spectacular views of the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, if you are willing to navigate the rolling hills and cliff edges. Hot springs are a popular attraction in this wilderness area. If you can find these springs (best accessed from the river), you will discover that the water seeps from the cliff walls and rolls down the rock, growing thick mats of algae and ferns reminiscent of a tropical rainforest.
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 Black Canyon 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: November 6, 2002
Acreage: 17,220 acres
Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002 - Public law 107-282 (11/6/2002) To establish wilderness areas, promote conservation, improve public land, and provide for high quality development in Clark County, Nevada, and for other purposes
For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 107-282 or special provisions for 107-282 or legislative history for 107-282 for this law.
Organizations working with or connected to this wilderness are listed below.