The Sinking Creek Valley Cluster contains wildlands recognized by the Wilderness Society as “Mountain Treasures”, areas that are worthy of protection from logging and road construction.

The land form, climate, soils and geology of the Appalachian highlands, as well as its evolutionary history, have created one of the most diverse collection of plants and animals in the deciduous forests of the temperate world.

The province marks the eastern boundary in the Paleozoic era of an older land surface on the east.

With a moderate current, and access from several crossing roads, the stream offers an easy paddle for canoeists until it nears the town of Newport where it turns north and encounters an 11-foot mill dam and the beginning of a series of rapids.

Now called the Cumberland Gap Road, it passes along Sinking Creek Valley from New Castle to Newport.

[3][7] Other clusters of the Wilderness Society's "Mountain Treasures" in the Jefferson National Forest (north to south):