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Kobuk Valley National Park

Pictures by QT Luong

[1 : Overview][2 : Great Sand Dunes] [3 : Kobuk River] [4 : Caribou] [All]
 [Floating the Kobuk River]

View only Large Format photographs of Kobuk Valley National Park

Kobuk Valley National Park is located in Northwestern Artic Alaska, entirely above the Artic Circle, at the northern limit of the Boreal forest. Delimited by the Warring Mountains in the South and the Baird Mountains in the North, it is the centerpiece of a vast ecosystem, of which the most visible inhabitants are the caribou of the Western Artic herd. This herd, which includes more than 400000 caribou, migrate annually between their winter breeding grounds, south of the Warring Mountains, and their summer calving grounds, north of the Baird Mountains. It is an impressive sight to witness them swimming across the Kobuk River, a journey that has been for ages central to the lifestyle of the Inupiaq eskimos, who hunt for subsistence the caribou along the river. In this most isolated place, the least visited of the US National Parks, they are the only other humans you are likely to see. An unexpected feature of the park are its vast and actively moving sand dunes, where in summer the temperature can climb above the 100s F. A rarity in the Artic, they are a relic of the last ice age, when glaciers deposited sand there.

With no roads in the park or even within hundreds of miles of it, the prefered way of exploring it is by paddling the Kobuk River, wide and placid. Lanchi and I flew from Kotzebue, the largest eskimo community in Alaska, to the small eskimo village of Ambler with our inflatable canoe, and then took off from the eskimo village of Kiana, about a hundred miles downriver. See also the pictures of floating the Kobuk River.

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Aerial view of the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) River, Warring Mountains, and fall colors at Onion Portage. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Berry plants and trees in fall colors at Onion Portage. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Shrubs and trees in fall foliage near Kavet Creek. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Edge of the Great Sand Dunes with tundra and taiga below. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Caribou tracks and ripples in the Great Sand Dunes. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Sand dunes with spruce trees. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Pocket of Spruce trees in the Great Sand Dunes. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Kavet Creek, with the Great Sand Dunes in the background. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Pond near Kavet Creek. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Antlers and bend of the Kobuk River, evening. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Kobuk river and sand bar seen through Spruce trees. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) River and Baird mountains. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Sand bar shore, river and Baird mountains, evening. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Baird mountains with a fresh dusting of snow, morning. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Caribou antlers, tundra, and river. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Caribou crossing the Kobuk River during their fall migration. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Caribou swimming across the Kobuk River during their fall migration. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Dead caribou head on the river shore. Kobuk Valley National Park (color) Dead caribou head discarded by hunters. Kobuk Valley National Park (color)

All text and photos © QT Luong. See conditions for use of images. There are 20 color pictures on this page out of 63 color pictures of Kobuk Valley.

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More pictures of Kobuk Valley: page 1 2 3 4 - All
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