The dark green is the Forest Service estimate of good black bear habitat, the main criterion being less than .25 mile of open road per square mile, or essentially roadless.  Counting National Forest land only, there are 14,112 acres with a road density of .11 mi/sq mi. Brown and dark gray areas are private land.  White is other National Forest land.  Major trails are shown as dashed lines. The Inventoried Roadless Area is smaller, 9,606 acres, since it must meet the road density standard of .32 mi improved road/sq mi, for each 1000 acres of the area.

Location: McDowell County, E of Blue Ridge Parkway, and E of Mt. Mitchell, just N and E of Mackey Mtn. wild area, and NE of NC 80.

Access:  From Old Fort, take US 70 E to NC 80 and proceed N to intersection with the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Park in parking area and walk old woods road paralleling Parkway northbound.  Follow round white blazes of Mtns-to-Sea Trail to Hazelnut Gap. A trail up Singecat Creek is accessed from NC 80 at a 180 deg. bend in the road about a mile E of the Parkway.  A trail (FS 223) up Armstrong Creek on the N is accessible from Cty road 1443.

USGS Topographic Quadrangles:  Celo, Little Switzerland, (Marion West), (Old Fort)

Features/Description/Potential:  The Woods Mtn wild area consists of the steep slopes E of, and downhill from the Parkway with considerable 100+ year-old stands per Forest Service inventory.  Woods Mt. ridge runs from the Parkway at 3600' immediately N of Hazelnut Gap, and then generally E to Timber Ridge at 3200'.  The entire ridge is narrow with cliffs on the N side, and gives spectacular views N into the Armstrong Creek basin (2000') and to the S into several basins draining toward NC80.  The N basin is bounded on the E by Timber Ridge and on the W by the Parkway ridge.  The Mountains-to-Sea Trail follows the Woods Mt. ridgeline E-W (FS trail 218) to FS road 104 and on to US 221. (See Alan de Hart's book, "Hiking NC's Mountains-to-Sea Trail", published in 2000.)  FS trail 223 splits from FS 218, beginning about 1000' from Hazelnut Gap and dropping NE into the Armstrong Creek valley to the Fish Hatchery on Cty road 1443. Unnumbered trails dropping off of the main Woods Mtn ridge follow ridgetops, Timber Ridge to the N, and another S on Singecat Ridge.  Another drops SW to Singecat Creek. ("Singecat" is a type of pudding!)
     The most beautiful part of the main Woods Mtn ridge trail is about a mile E of Hazelnut Gap. There are big (36") red oaks, chestnut oaks and poplars  There are giant trees, including an unusual 6 ft diameter sugar maple and 3 to 4 ft dia. black locusts, in the N-facing poplar coves in the Armstrong Creek drainage on the N side of the Woods Mtn ridgeline.

Pictures

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