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.

Noisy Creek flows north through this Wilderness and Diobsud Creek drifts south, both bolstering a foot-entangling understory of ferns, mosses, salal, elderberry, and salmonberry, mixed with nasty devil's club along the banks.

Staggeringly steep ridges rise abruptly to the northeast and southwest of the creeks, topping out at 6,234 feet on Mount Watson, which anchors the center of the area.

The Wilderness shares the border of the southwest corner of North Cascades National Park, just south of Baker Lake. National forestland–roadless, primitive, and undesignated–surrounds to the east, west, and south.

Deep drainages carve the forested slopes, the lower portions of which consist of old-growth fir, cedar, and hemlock. Black-tailed deer, black bears, elk, and northern spotted owls all seek refuge in the dense, shadowy forest. Some alpine meadows open the ridge tops.

Annual precipitation reaches 150 inches.

The only trail access to this Wilderness is by the Anderson/Watson Lakes Trail, a wonderful 2.3 mile hike to high alpine lakes. Near the Wilderness boundary, the Anderson Lakes Trail leads to a small cluster of lakes outside the Wilderness. The Watson Lakes Trail continues on into Wilderness and ends at Watson Lakes. Both groups of lakes offer spectacular views of local peaks and are notoriously buggy in summer.

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 Noisy-Diobsud 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 Noisy-Diobsud Wilderness
FS Topographic Map
Google Earth

Washington 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 98-339

Date: July 3, 1984
Acreage: 14,300 acres

Washington State Wilderness Act of 1984 - Public law 98-339 (7/3/1984) To designate certain National Forest System lands in the State of Washington 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 98-339 or special provisions for 98-339 or legislative history for 98-339.

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.