Bright Star Wilderness


Bright Star Wilderness is a wilderness area in Kern County in the U.S. state of California.
The California Desert Protection Act of 1994 added the wilderness to the National Wilderness Preservation System and it is administered by the Bureau of Land Management.
Bright Star Wilderness surrounds Kern County's Kelso Peak and drainages to the north, south and east, including Bright Star Canyon and Cortez Canyon.
The Wilderness lies within the BLM’s Jawbone-Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern in the higher Mojave Desert and protects much of the Piute Mountains, of the southern Sierra Nevada.

Vegetation

A wide variety of vegetation grows in the Bright Star Wilderness. The upper slopes of Kelso Peak are dotted with Single-leaf piñon pine and California juniper, while the lower slopes are brushy and broken by large granite outcroppings. The valley below the peak is dense with Joshua trees.