Virginia’s Craig Creek Cluster is a protected natural region centered on the sixty-five-mile Craig Creek, uniting wilderness areas and nearby wildlands within the Ridge and Valley province. Recognized for high mountains, trout streams, wildlife habitat, and broad views, it offers secluded backcountry recreation such as hiking, canoeing, fishing, hunting, horseback riding, and mountain biking. Its significance also lies in the southern Appalachians’ exceptional biodiversity, including rare mussels, fish, bats, and plants sustained by isolated ridge-and-valley habitats. The area’s forests also bear the marks of chestnut blight, farming, grazing, hunting, and logging, making its protection part of a larger effort to restore damaged Appalachian lands.