Taken from a 1993 Forest Service map of bear habitat, shown in green. The orange line is the area proposed for protection in The Wilderness Society's "NC Mountain Treasures. Dark gray shows private land. Major trails are shown as dashed lines.

Location: Cherokee Co.  Near the headwaters of the Tellico River, but it lies in a different watershed. It is immediately SW of the Snowbird WSA north of Murphy, and about 3 miles E of the Unicoi wild area. It encompasses the juncture of the Unicoi Mtns. with the Snowbird Mtns.

Access:  From Murphy, N on Tennessee St., which becomes Cty 1331, to Cty 1337 to FS Road 420 to Harshaw Gap or Tipton Creek.  Unnumbered trail runs SE to Mose Creek and meets a short spur (FS 420A) of FS 420 again.  (Good car camping place at the end of 420A at Mose Creek)  Or take Bearpen Branch trail NE to the new FS ORV road running W from Coldspring Gap.  FS 420 continues in to TN, but the road deteriorates a mile or so beyond Tipton Creek to 4WD quality.

USGS Topographic Quadrangles: McDaniel Bald, Marble, (Big Junction for roads and terrain N of wild area)

Features/Description/Potential:
    Is separated from Snowbird WSA on the NE by a neck of private land less than 1 mile wide.  This neck is the valley between Sassafras Ridge on the S edge of Snowbird and the extreme W end (McDaniel Bald at 4600 ft.) of the main Snowbird Mountains ridgeline.  This Bald is the E end of the Unicoi Mts. ridgeline, the N boundary of the wild area, which runs W almost to Harshaw Gap at 3300 ft.  Falling to the S of the Unicoi ridge is the basin of Mose Creek, bordered on the W by Deaden Tree Gap and the Rocky Knob ridge, and on the E by Fork Ridge.  W from Deaden Tree Gap is Tipton Creek's headwaters, flowing W and crossing FS Road 420.
     Several trails run through the area which can be accessed from FS road #420. Trails are unnumbered on topo, which could mean they no longer exist or are grown over.  One starts on the W wild area border and goes up Tipton Creek to Deaden Tree Gap and then drops abruptly 1200 ft SE into the Mose Creek drainage.  From here a branch climbs Mose Creek half a mile NNE, and another drops a half mile SSW down to FS 420 again.  This is rugged up and down country.  This route was scouted and found to be good woods road, except for the steep drop from Deaden Tree Gap to Mose Creek, where a trail was nonexistent in the upper portion.  Timber is relatively young and the land is steep.  W of Deaden Tree Gap there has been clearcutting.  Found bear scat on the scouting trip.  The head of the Mose Creek valley is extremely steep, with a headwall between Hangover Top and Freeman's Knob.  Would be interesting to explore.
     The Upper Tellico ORV (Off-Road-Vehicle) Area adjoins the wild area, with 12 ORV routes, one of which skirts the N boundary along the Unicoi Ridge.  The ORV's are excluded from the wild area by big earth berms to block entry at woods roads.
     Tellico River National Wild and Scenic River Study area is N of the wild area and TN access.  A link to Snowbird and the Tellico River corridor, as well as to the Unicoi wild area on the W would be highly desirable from a wildlife point-of-view.  In 2007 the Southern Environmental Law Center threatened to sue the Forest Service for allowing large amounts of sediment to flow into the Tellico and feeder streams because of poor maintenance/poor management of ORV use of the roads in the ORV area.  Several of these roads were closed by the Forest Service pending more study.
 

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