Kobuk Valley National Park
Kobuk Valley National Park is located in northwestern Alaska
about 25 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It was designated a
United States National Park in 1980 by the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act. It is noted for the Great Kobuk
Sand Dunes and caribou migration routes. The park offers
backcountry camping, hiking, backpacking, and dog sledding.
There are no designated trails or roads in the park, which at
1,669,813 acres, is approximately the size of the state of
Delaware.
Kobuk Valley National Park is bounded by the Waring Mountains in
the South and the Baird Mountains in the North, it is the center
of a vast ecosystem between Selawik National Wildlife Refuge and
the Noatak National Preserve. It is over 75 miles by river to
the Chukchi Sea. The Gates of the Arctic National Park and
Preserve lie 32 miles to the east. 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.
No roads lead to the park. It is reachable by foot, dogsled,
snowmobile, and chartered air taxis from Nome and Kotzebue
year-round. The park is one of the least visited in the National
Park System, ranking as the least visited national park in the
country in 2006 with just 3,005 visitors. This dropped to just
847 visitors in 2007.
