Kobuk Valley National Park
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Kobuk Valley National Park is in northwestern Alaska 40 km 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 trails or roads in the over 7,000 square kilometres (slightly larger than Delaware).
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 120 km by river to the Chukchi Sea. The Gates of the Arctic National Park lie 50 km to the west. 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.
External links
- Official site (http://www.nps.gov/kova)
- Photos of Kobuk Valley National Park - Terra Galleria (http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.kobuk-valley.html)
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