This is a mysterious and beautiful area of high mountain meadows and hill-hugging mists. During the spring, abundant wildflowers welcome the season, and in the fall, vivid colors mark the changes. The land is deeply forested, and nearly all alpine meadows. For those who want to experience large old-growth forests, Acker Divide and Cripple Camp trails fit the bill. In the spring, these beautiful meadows are a pallet of lush green grass, wildflowers, and trees in bud. In the summer, the smell of horsemint fills the air as hummingbirds dart from flower to flower.

The range of several conifers meet in this wilderness creating a diverse ecosystem including sugar pine, grand fir, mountain hemlock, western white pine, incense cedar, subalpine fir, western red cedar, white fir, lodgepole pine, pacific silver fir, western hemlock, and white bark pine.

Numerous trails throughout the wilderness take visitors to many lakes, meadows, and breathtaking vistas. Early local resident O.C. Brown described the area around Fish Lake; "on all sides the mountains clad in dense, evergreen forest, rise like a wall and are crowned by massive peaks of frowning rocks, that stand like feudal castles and for countless ages have mirrored their bold outlines in the Sylvan Lake".