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.
This remote area has deep forest cover interrupted only by pleasant meadows and alpine tundra on the northern portion's Latir Mesa.
With three peaks exceeding 12,500 feet in elevation, including a portion of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, this Wilderness showcases the very finest of New Mexico's high country.
An abundance of southern Rocky Mountain wildlife takes advantage of the region's riches, including mule deer, black bears, badgers, beavers, bobcats, coyotes, ferrets, foxes, mountain lions, marmots, martens, and muskrats.
Heart Lake, named for its romantic shape, is the source of Cabresto Creek.
The Lake Fork Trail is the most popular of the main trails. It begins at Cabresto Lake and continues five miles to Heart Lake, which is 11,520 feet above sea level. More ambitious hikers can head five miles past Heart Lake to enter the magnificent country of Latir Peak and the alpine mesas.
Two other trails, Midnight and Bull Creek, run west and receive much less use.
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 Latir Peak 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: December 19, 1980
Acreage: 20,000 acres
New Mexico Wilderness Act - Public law 96-550 (12/19/1980) To designate certain National Forest System lands in the state of New Mexico for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System, and for other purposes
For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 96-550 or special provisions for 96-550 or legislative history for 96-550 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.