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Lands eligible for wilderness designation are called roadless areas. By law, in forest plan revisions, the Forest Service must review roadless areas for possible recommendations to Congress for designation as wilderness. To qualify as roadless, areas must be generally wild (with less than 1/2 mile of improved road per 1,000 acres) natural (less than 20 percent of the forest less than 10 years old), and provide outstanding opportunities for backcountry recreation or solitude.

In the most recent inventory, about 164,000 acres, or 22 percent, of the Jefferson National Forest is identified as roadless. Many conservationists contend that the Forest Service did not identify additional qualified lands as roadless. As stated in the Southern Appalachian Assessment, "roadless areas are thought to comprise the last remaining large tracts of natural appearing land in the region, other than wilderness."