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.

Heavy snow accumulates on the heights of Eagles Nest Wilderness in the Gore Range, providing a major contribution to the waters of the Colorado River. Melting snow in spring plunges from the heights to create marshy meadows and sloughs, as well as turbulent thundering creeks when temperatures soar abruptly.

This is an area more vertical than horizontal, with sheer rock faces, keen-edged ridges, deep valleys, jagged peaks, and dense forests lower down, and foot travel can be strenuous.

Approximately 180 miles of trail provide access to Eagles Nest, most of them dead-ending at a radiant gem of an alpine lake.

Two trails, at the northern and southern extremes, cross entirely from one side of the Wilderness to the other side: Upper Cataract Lake to Piney Lake across the north, a distance of 15 miles; and Gore Creek to Red Buffalo Pass to Uneva Pass across the south, a distance of about 19 miles.

Off-trail hiking can be difficult, but several informal routes climb the steep passes of the area's craggy core.

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 Eagles Nest 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 Eagles Nest Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

Colorado 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 94-352

Date: July 12, 1976
Acreage: 133,910 acres

(No official title, designates Eagles Nest Wilderness) - Public law 94-352 (7/12/1976) To designate the Eagles Nest Wilderness, Arapaho and White River National Forests, in the State of Colorado

For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 94-352 or legislative history for 94-352.

Public Law 105-75

Date: November 12, 1997
Acreage: 160 acres

(No official title, boundary adjustment for Eagles Nest Wilderness) - Public Law 105-75 (11/12/1997) Boundary adjustment within the Eagle's Nest Wilderness

For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 105-75 or legislative history for 105-75.

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.