Kobuk Valley National Park

How to Get There

From Fairbanks, AK (~430 mi by air): Fly Alaska Airlines from Fairbanks International Airport to Kotzebue's Ralph Wien Memorial Airport (OTZ), then charter an air taxi approximately 100 miles east to the Kobuk River area, as no roads lead into the park.

Overview

Kobuk Valley National Park is a national park in the Arctic region of northwestern Alaska, located about 25 miles (40 km) north of the Arctic Circle. The park was designated in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act to preserve the 100 ft (30 m) high Great Kobuk Sand Dunes and the surrounding area which includes caribou migration routes. Park visitors must bring all their own gear for backcountry camping, hiking, backpacking, boating, and dog sledding. No designated trails or roads exist in the park, which at 1,750,716 acres (2,735.5 sq mi; 7,084.9 km2), is slightly larger than the state of Delaware.

Since no roads lead into the park, visitors arrive via chartered air taxi from Nome, Bettles, or Kotzebue. Flights are available year-round, but are weather dependent. The park is one of the least-visited American national parks, along with others inaccessible by road, including the neighboring Gates of the Arctic, Isle Royale in the middle of Lake Superior, the Dry Tortugas at the end of the Florida Keys, as well as Katmai and Lake Clark in southern Alaska.

Geography

The park is the center of a vast ecosystem between Selawik National Wildlife Refuge and the Noatak National Preserve. It is over 75 miles (121 km) by river to the Chukchi Sea. The Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve lie 32 miles (51 km) to the east. The park includes about 81,000 acres (33,000 ha) of lands owned by native corporations and the State of Alaska.

The park consists of the broad wetlands valley of the Kobuk River which runs along the southern edge of the western Brooks Range, which is known as the Baird Mountains. The boundary of the park runs along the height-of-land of the Baird Mountains in the north and the shorter Waring Mountains in the south that form a ring, defining and enclosing the Kobuk Valley. The middle two-thirds of the Kobuk River, from just above Kiana to just below Ambler, is included in the park, as are several of its major tributaries such as the Salmon River and the Hunt River. The valley floor is mainly covered by glacial drift. Much of the southern portion of the park, south of the Kobuk River, is managed as the Kobuk Valley Wilderness of 174,545 acres (70,636 ha). The Selawik Wilderness lies to the south, in the adjoining Selawik National Wildlife Refuge.

Kobuk Sand Dunes

Three sets of sand dune fields are located on the south side of the Kobuk River. The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, Little Kobuk Sand Dunes and the Hunt River Dunes are remnants of dune fields that covered as many as 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) immediately after the retreat of Pleistocene glaciation. A combination of outwash deposits from the glaciers and strong winds created the field, which is now mostly covered by forest and tundra. In present times the active dune fields cover about 20,500 acres (8,300 ha). The Great Kobuk Sand Dunes comprise the largest active Arctic dune field in North America. NASA has funded their study as an analog for Martian polar dunes.

The park's headquarters are at the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center in Kotzebue, about 100 miles (160 km) west of the park on the Bering Sea coast. Seasonal ranger stations are operated along the Kobuk River at Kallarichuk, at the west end of the park, and at Onion Portage at the east end of the park. Offices and visitor services for Cape Krusenstern National Monument and Noatak National Preserve are in the same facility. The units are managed together as the Western Arctic National Parklands, with a single Park Service superintendent in charge.

Ecology

The fish and wildlife in the park are typical of arctic and subarctic fauna. The major economic species are caribou, moose, and fish species such as salmon and sheefish. The most visible animals are the 400,000 caribou of the Western Arctic herd. The herd migrates annually between their winter breeding grounds, south of the Waring Mountains, and their summer calving grounds, north of the Baird Mountains. The herd's annual crossing of the Kobuk River is central to the Inupiaq people's subsistence hunting. Large mammals in the park include wolf packs, Arctic and red foxes, caribou, and moose. Black bears, brown bears, beavers, river otters, Canadian lynxes, and Dall sheep exist in the park as well. Smaller mammals include wolverines, martens, minks, porcupines, muskrats, snowshoe hares and a variety of voles. Fish species include chinook, chum, pink and sockeye salmon, with other salmonids including Dolly Varden, Arctic char, lake trout and Arctic grayling. Other species include burbot, Arctic lamprey, round, broad and humpback whitefish, and pond and rainbow smelt.

Getting to the park

Kobuk Valley National Park is one of the least accessible parks in the U.S. National Park System, located entirely above the Arctic Circle in northwestern Alaska. Like its neighbor Gates of the Arctic, it has no roads, trails, or visitor facilities, so reaching it requires flying into small bush communities and continuing on by air, river, or foot.

• By Air (Bush Plane) — The primary way into the park is via chartered small aircraft flying from regional hubs such as Kotzebue, Bettles, or the village of Ambler. These planes can land on gravel bars, the park's famous sand dunes, or nearby lakes, since there are no established runways inside the park.
• Flying to Kotzebue First — Most visitors first fly commercially into Kotzebue, a regional hub reachable by scheduled flights from Anchorage. From there, smaller air taxi operators provide charter flights into or near the park.
• By River — The Kobuk River runs directly through the park and is a popular route for visitors traveling by canoe, kayak, or raft. Many trips combine a bush plane drop-off upstream with a multi-day float down the river through the park, including past the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes.
• On Foot — As with most Arctic parks, there are no maintained trails, so all hiking is cross-country. Visitors typically hike in from a river put-in point or an air taxi drop-off, using topographic maps and backcountry navigation skills.

Because of the park's remoteness, most trips are arranged through local air taxi operators or guiding services based in Kotzebue, Bettles, or Ambler, who can help coordinate flights, river logistics, and safety planning. Weather in the region can shift quickly, so it's wise to build flexibility into any travel schedule in case flights are delayed.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kobuk Valley National Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0