Bright Star Wilderness is an 8,190-acre protected area in Kern County, California, in the higher Mojave Desert. Added to the National Wilderness Preservation System by the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 and administered by the Bureau of Land Management, it surrounds 5,090-foot Kelso Peak and includes major drainages such as Bright Star Canyon and Cortez Canyon. Within the Jawbone-Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern, it preserves much of the Piute Mountains, part of the southern Sierra Nevada. Its terrain changes with elevation, from single-leaf piñon pine and California juniper on upper slopes to brushy granite-studded lower slopes and dense Joshua trees in the valley below.