The Sipsey Wilderness lies within Bankhead National Forest around the

Sipsey Fork of the Black Warrior River The Sipsey Fork of the Black Warrior River is a river located in the U.S. state of Alabama, and is formed by the junction of Thompson and Hubbard creeks in the Sipsey Wilderness of Bankhead National Forest. The Sipsey Fork discharges into the ...

in northwestern

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

, United States. Designated in 1975 and expanded in 1988, Sipsey is the largest and most frequently visited

Wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

area in Alabama and contains dozens of waterfalls. It was also the first designated wilderness area east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. The wilderness consists of the low plateau of

Brindlee Mountain Brindley Mountain (or "Brindlee Mountain") is an isolated portion of the Appalachian Plateau in northern Alabama. It occupies significant portions of Cullman, Morgan, and Marshall Counties and extends into Winston and Lawrence counties. The ...

which is dissected into a rough landscape by several creeks and

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

s. Due to the layers of limestone and sandstone that make up the area,

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

s are very common in the wilderness. This feature has earned the wilderness the nickname "Land of 1000 Waterfalls." The wilderness is in the

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests The Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests is an ecoregion of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It consists of mesophytic plants west of the Appalachian Mountains in the Southeastern United Sta ...

ecoregion. Much of the wilderness was once logged, but new growth forests have now taken hold in the logged areas. Some

old-growth forest An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Natio ...

s can also be found in the wilderness. The most significant are about along Bee Branch Gorge and Buck Rough Canyon, which include old

Eastern Hemlock ''Tsuga canadensis'', also known as eastern hemlock, eastern hemlock-spruce, or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as ''pruche du Canada'', is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It is the state tree of ...

American Beech American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

, Sweet Birch,

White Oak ''Quercus'' subgenus ''Quercus'' is one of the two subgenera into which the genus ''Quercus'' was divided in a 2017 classification (the other being subgenus ''Cerris''). It contains about 190 species divided among five sections. It may be calle ...

, and

Tulip Poplar ''Liriodendron tulipifera''—known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, lynn-tree, hickory-poplar, and yellow-poplar—is the North American representative of the two-species genus ...

. The Sipsey Wilderness Hiking Club promotes hiking in the Sipsey Wilderness.

History of creation

Faults in the 1964 Wilderness Act made it essentially impossible to designate a

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

area anywhere east of the

. Mary Ivy Burks of Birmingham worked to establish a Sipsey Wilderness Area in the Bankhead National Forest at a time when many believed that "The Wilderness Act" should apply only to the western part of the United States. She was in the forefront of what became known as the Eastern Wilderness Movement. Her work to secure the Sipsey Wilderness in the Bankhead National Forest was her crowning achievement. John Randolph and Mike Leonard led the effort to expand the wilderness in a second phase during the 1980s. Alabama would be the agent of change, as a strange union of environmentalists, loggers, bird watchers, and others joined together to push to change the Act to allow for the designation of Sipsey as a wilderness area. Thanks to a bill introduced by Senator

John Sparkman John Jackson Sparkman (December 20, 1899 – November 16, 1985) was an American jurist and politician from the state of Alabama. A Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1946 and the United ...

, the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act of 1975, the wilderness was finally designated with an original size of . The wilderness would be expanded in 1988. Thanks to the changes made to the Act, dozens of wilderness areas have been designated across the United States. The Sipsey Wilderness helped to show that a smaller plot of restored land in the eastern US could be a wilderness just as much as a larger tract of virgin land in the west.

Official trailheads

* Sipsey River Picnic Area * Randolph Trailhead * Thompson Trailhead * Borden Creek Trailhead * Braziel Creek Trailhead * Gum Pond Trailhead * Flannigin Trailhead A map of trails is available from th
US Forest Service

Official trails

* FT 200: Borden Creek Trail, . * FT 201: Rippey Trail, . * FT 202: Randolph Trail, . * FT 203: Lookout Trail, . * FT 204: Bee Ridge Trail, . * FT 206: Thompson Creek Trail, . * FT 207: Braziel Creek Trail, . * FT 208: Northwest Trail, . * FT 209: Sipsey River Trail, . * FT 210: Mitchell Ridge Trail, . * FT 223: Gum Pond Trail, . * FT 224: Bunyan Hill Trail, . Trail maps are available from th
U.S. Forest Service
and fro
Briartech
During the

2011 Super Outbreak The 2011 Super Outbreak was the largest, costliest, and one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks ever recorded, taking place in the Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern United States from April 25 to 28, 2011, leaving catastrophic destruc ...

of tornadoes, there was extensive damage to much of the north Sipsey area. It was not considered feasible to fully repair the trail system at the time and efforts were focused on more popular routes. Several badly damaged trails were considered "abandoned" indefinitely, pending the resources to clear them. There is a notice to this effect placarded at the main Sipsey Trailhead, however this notice is not always present at outlying trailheads. It appears that more recently (beginning in late 2013) some effort to clear and reroute the remainder of these trails has started taking place, although it is limited and trail reports continue to suggest difficulty hiking and following some less common trails. It is suggested that potential hikers find reliable recent information while planning a hike.

Places of interest

* Saltpeter Furnace: Located not far from the Bee Branches, a small cave is hidden by a waterfall, and that cave was once so important that a small skirmish was fought at the nearby Hubbard's

cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. The cave is a source of

saltpeter Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with a sharp, salty, bitter taste and the chemical formula . It is a potassium salt of nitric acid. This salt consists of potassium cations and nitrate anions , and is therefore an alkali metal nitrate ...

, a major ingredient in the manufacture of

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...

. * Sipsey River Picnic Area: Where Cranal Road crosses the Sipsey River, a day-use area has been constructed to allow for picnicking and to serve as a parking area for hiking in the area. A $3 per vehicle day use fee is charged.

References

The Battle for Alabama's Wilderness; Saving the Great Gymnasiums of Nature, by John N. Randolph

History of creation

Official trailheads

Official trails

Places of interest

References

External links