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Kobuk Valley National Park

Photo: Western Arctic National Parklands / CC BY 2.0 · source

🏜️ Canyons & deserts

Kobuk Valley National Park

Kotzebue, AK · Northwest Arctic Alaska

About

One of the least-visited parks in the country, Kobuk Valley sits above the Arctic Circle with no roads, trails, or services, reachable only by bush plane or boat from Kotzebue. Its strangest feature is the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, 25 square miles of rolling sand left by Ice Age glaciers, the largest active dune field in the Arctic. Each fall, hundreds of thousands of caribou ford the Kobuk River at Onion Portage in one of North America's great migrations.

Highlights

Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, the largest active dunes in the ArcticTwice-yearly caribou migration of nearly half a million animalsOnion Portage, a 9,000-year-old caribou river crossing and archeological siteRoadless, trailless wilderness reached only by air or boat from KotzebueOne of the least-visited national parks in the United States

Getting there

171 Third Ave, Kotzebue, AK 99752

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Curated guides that feature Kobuk Valley National Park.

The United States National Parks63 places

The United States National Parks

All 63 of America's national parks in one place: the geysers and canyons, glaciers and giant sequoias, coral reefs and live volcanoes the country set aside for everyone. From the Grand Canyon to the Everglades to the wilds of Alaska, this is the complete collection, each one worth building a whole trip around.