Roadless areas in the local national forest reflect a wide diversity of scenic habitats and recreational opportunities. From the crest of the mountain range down into the deep canyons carved by local rivers, roadless wildlands in the Stanislaus National Forest contain beauty, diverse habitats, and a great variety of wildlife. These roadless areas range from arid, sparsely vegetated brushy slopes on rocky canyon walls to extremely lush wet meadows and lake areas across the upper forests. Crest zone peaks rise against deep blue skies in the high country, while thundering rivers dominate the canyons of the lower areas.
North Fork Mokelumne roadless area lies the furthest north along the North Fork Mokelumne River on the canyon wall south of Salt Springs reservoir.
Tryon Peak and Pacific Valley roadless areas extend north of the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness.
North Fork Stanislaus-Shoofly roadless area includes two broad stretches of river canyon in the middle and north forks of the Stanislaus River.
Bald Peak, Night, Eagle, and Waterhouse roadless areas are high elevation rugged wild areas stretching from the Sonora Pass west to upslope from Pinecrest Lake. Each of these roadless areas touch the Emigrant Wilderness.
Bell roadless area lies to the south of Dodge Ridge and includes scenic Bell Meadow and Pine Valley.
Cherry Bluffs roadless area, adjacent to the Emmigrant Wilderness, extends north from Cherry Lake to Hells Mountain.
North Mountain roadless area is a prominent ridge that protrudes out from Yosemite Park, high above the Tuolumne River.
Tuolumne River roadless area straddles the wild and scenic river and the dry, oak, brushcovered habitat along its canyon.
Trumbull roadless area includes very steep, south-facing slopes of brush, oaks, and scattered conifers above the Merced River to the west of Yosemite Park.
If you would like to find out more about wildland preservation, be sure to contact us (info@cserc.org) or sign-up for CSERC's quarterly newsletter.
When you and many others take the time to make your views known, you help CSERC to be effective at keeping bulldozers, chainsaws, and other harmful human activities out of the remaining precious wildlands of our local region. Join CSERC in our mission to preserve local pristine gems in our spectacular mountains.
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Why are "roadless areas" important and worth saving? The vast, overwhelming majority of America and California has already been developed. Thousands of miles of roads literally create a spider's web of sprawling impacts across the landscape. Roads bring logging, mining, dam construction, powerlines, development, poaching, and the introduction of non-native plants and animals. A small percentage of America has been officially preserved in its wild condition as wilderness - primarily the rock and ice of high elevation mountain ranges or the crown jewels of desert lands. 
It is a great blow to both the environment and to taxpayers whenever roadless areas are opened to new logging and road-building. Preserving roadless areas makes sense from both an economic and environmental perspective. Building logging roads into wild places almost always loses money for taxpayers, and it always harms the natural habitat values of a wild area. In addition, the Forest Service already has more than 400,000 miles of roads within America's national forests... far more than it can afford to maintain. We don't need any more roads. We definitely DO need the remaining precious roadless wildlands that help compensate for many other areas that have been destroyed, altered, or degraded.