Kobuk Valley Wilderness

With 174,545 acres, the Kobuk Valley Wilderness came into being as part of the Kobuk Valley National Park in 1980. The wilderness drops slowly to the north, coming down from the low summits of the Waring Mountains. On the southern side of those same mountains is the Selawik Wilderness, part of the Selawik National Wildlife Refuge.

About 25 square miles of the Kobuk Valley Wilderness is covered with the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, crescent-shaped dunes of sand left behind when the glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago.

As the place is accessible only by air, and this is northwest Alaska: almost flat, steppe-like tundra and black spruce muskegs interspersed with large rivers and thousands of ponds, lakes and bogs, getting around here can be quite hard. So as Kobuk Valley National Park is one of the least visited national parks in the system, Kobuk Valley Wilderness sees less than a handful of people every year, and even then, only in season. Of course, that season is when you'll wish you'd brought steel mesh mosquito nets to use with your industrial strength bug spray...