If you are looking for an adventure in a remote wilderness frontier, then consider a stay in Kobuk Valley National Park. Established as a national park on December 2, 1980, Kobuk was named after the Kobuk River that runs through the center of the park. Adventurers who visit this park will have a true wilderness experience as there are no roads, rail services, lodging, or public facilities in the park. Backcountry camping is the only means for spending the night within the park as there are no campgrounds. Visitors should bring their own supplies because there are no amenities or first aid in the park. The villages of Ambler, Kiana, and Kotzebue provide lodging and other amenities.

In Kobuk Valley National Park visitors will find caribou, sand dunes, the Kobuk River, and Onion Portage among other wild things. Nearly half a million caribou migrate through the park going north in the spring and south in the fall in search of enough food to support their body weight.

The great sand dunes in Kobuk Valley National Park are true oddities in the Alaska national parks system. They lie forty miles above the Arctic Circle, yet in the summer temperatures can reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In some places the dunes reach 100 feet in height. There are three clusters of dunes within the park – the Great Kobuk, the Little Kobuk, and the Hunt River Sand Dunes. These dunes – a little bit of the desert in the middle of lake wetlands – cover 25 square miles and make up the largest active sand dunes within arctic latitudes.

In Kobuk Valley National Park, visitors will find the Kobuk River running through the center of park. On the north side of the dunes, the river winds 345 miles through the park. It provides a travel route for people and wildlife.

The Onion Portage site – a National Historic Landmark on the Kobuk River – is located on the eastern side of the park. This site is where the natives gathered 9,000 years ago to harvest caribou as they crossed the stream. Today, local Alaskan residents still honor this tradition by hunting caribou from this river crossing in the fall to feed their families It is also one of the most important archeological sites in arctic America because it contains more than 70 distinct stratified cultural layers. These stratifications document the progression of human camps over a span of 12,500 years.

In Kobuk Valley National Park, visitors will have the opportunity to view and photograph an abundance of wildlife including 650 species of flowering plants, caribou, dall sheep, ewes, ram, lamb, moose, grizzly bears, foxes, weasels, wolverines, lynxes, martens, snowshoe hare, hoary marmots, red squirrel, ground squirrel, pika, porcupines, beavers, shrew, voles, and lemmings.

Kobuk Valley National Park, one of eight Alaska national parks, gives adventurers who are looking for a remote and rugged wilderness experience the opportunity to fulfill there dreams. The park has no roads and no lodging. It is a natural wonder with its 100 feet high sand dunes that sit within lake wetlands; bi-annual migration of nearly half a million caribou; and great Kobuk River that runs through the center of the park.