[4] An abandoned Forest Service Road 322 connects the Iron Mountain Trail from Backbone Rock in Tennessee.

The Appalachian Mountains were extensively timbered in the early twentieth century leaving logging roads that are becoming overgrown but still passable.

[8] Old logging roads and railroad grades can be located by consulting the historical topographic maps available from the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The London Bridge Branch wild area is covered by USGS topographic maps Laurel Bloomery and Damascus.

Geologic rock types are the Erwin Formation with white, vitreous quartzite, interbeds of dark-green, silty and sandy shale, minor siltstones and very fine sandstone; the Hampton Formation with dark greenish-gray, silty and sandy shale, micaceous shale, numerous layers of medium-grained, feldspathic, and thinly bedded sandstone; the Union Formation, a sequence of grey feldspathic sandstone, arkose, conglomerate, greywacke, siltstone and shale, and greenish amygdaloidal basalt flow; and Shady Dolomite, a light gray, well-bedded dolomite with thin to medium-bedded gray limestone, and yellowish brown residual clays with "jasperoid" diagnostic.

The rule provided some degree of protection by reducing the negative environmental impact of road construction and thus promoting the conservation of roadless areas.

[1] London Bridge Branch was inventoried in the roadless area review, and therefore protected from possible road construction and timber sales.