Located in the Eastern Divide Ranger District of the Jefferson National Forest, the wilderness falls between the crest of Potts Mountain on the southeast and Va 18 on the northwest.

[4] The Valley Branch Trail is an unofficial trail, 2.7 miles long, with a trailhead on Forest Service Road 177-1[5] Populations of native brook trout are found in Valley Branch Creek and Shawvers Run.

[3] Besides the oak-hickory forest common to the Jefferson Forest, the wilderness contains poplar, birch, hemlock and white pine along Valley Branch, and, in the dry section to the west of Potts Mountain, Virginia pine and chestnut oak.

[5] The slopes of the wilderness provide watershed protection for the federally endangered James River spinymussel found in Potts Creek.

The terrain is a complex anticlinal structure capped by erosion-resistant Silurian sandstone.