Russian Wilderness is a twelve thousand-acre protected area in northern California within Klamath National Forest, established in the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1984. It preserves the Russian Mountains and part of the Salmon Mountains crest, with rugged alpine-like terrain of granite crags, cirques, U-shaped valleys, more than twenty named lakes, and headwaters for the Scott River and North Fork Salmon River. As part of a larger nearly roadless region linked with the Trinity Alps and Marble Mountain wildernesses, it forms an important wildlife corridor. The area is also botanically significant for its unusual diversity of conifers and rare plants such as Siskiyou fireweed and Siskiyou phacelia.