Images of Kobuk Valley National Park – Northwestern Alaska, taken in June 2015.

Kobuk Valley National Park, located above the Arctic Circle, is one of the remotest parks in the National Parks system welcoming less than 1000 visitors each year. While there I hiked in to its most recognizable feature, the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes. Unique above the Arctic Circle, these dunes were created thousands of years ago by erosion and more recently by glaciers grounding rocks into dust. About 14,000 years ago, as the climate became warmer, plants began recapturing the dunes and now only 30 square miles still exist.

My excursion began in Ambler as my guide Loren took us on a two hour boat ride west on the Kobuk River. Once there we had to fight our way through a quarter of a mile of willow brush and bogs while the mosquitos relentlessly attacked us. This was followed by one and three quarter miles of forest and a few small canyons. After two hours of this true wilderness hike we reached our destination and scaled about two stories of sand to get onto the dunes. It is a spectacular site, especially considering we were in Alaska above the Arctic Circle and not on a beach in Florida!

After a quick lunch and a few pictures we made our way off the dunes and had begun to work our way back toward the boat when there was a tremendous scuffling in the brush to our left and we froze trying to determine what was happening. I saw a black bear going up a tree but Loren recognized it as a yearling cub and knew that we could be in trouble. He threw off his backpack and went in after his pistol (he had told me earlier that he forgot his holster but it wouldn’t be a problem because he had never seen a bear on one of these trips; later I would kid him that he had to dig under our Grandma’s cookies and Snickers bars to get to his gun!). His hunch was realized and out from the brush stepped the mother bear less than 20 yards from where we were standing. She stood there glaring at us, obviously not happy to see us but also not moving toward us (it’s quite possible that in this wilderness she may have never encountered humans before). We backed away slowly and once out of her range recalculated our route back to the boat and continued on our way…I for one made a point of looking over my shoulder every now and then just for the heck of it!

As you will see, even under extreme duress, I still had the wherewithal to pull out my camera, change to my long lens and shoot a few pictures…if I was going to be mauled at least I’d have pictures!