Kobuk Valley National Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Kobuk Valley National Park | |
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| IUCN Category II (National Park) | |
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| Location | Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, USA |
| Nearest city | Fairbanks |
| Coordinates | |
| Area | 1,669,813 acres (6,757.49 km²) |
| Established | December 2, 1980 |
| Visitors | 847[1] (in 2007) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
Kobuk Valley National Park is in northwestern Alaska 25 miles (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 designated trails or roads in the park, which at 1,669,813 acres (6,757.49 km²), is approximately the size of the state of 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 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 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, ranking as the least visited national park in the country in 2006 with just 3,005 visitors. Incredibly, this dropped to just 847 visitors in 2007.
[edit] References
- ^ National Park Service - Public Use Statistics Office. Information retrieved dynamically on 25 June 2007.
[edit] External links
- Official site
- Photos of Kobuk Valley National Park - Terra Galleria
- In depth information
- A traveler's experience visiting the park
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