Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska - Budget Expedition to Arctic Alaska

The Gates of the Arctic National Park covers much of the Brooks Range in northern Alaska. It is one of the most remote and unspoiled wildernesses in the world. It is a place where it is still possible to go "where no one has gone before".

A visit to the park is generally a true "expedition". Most people will engage a "bush" pilot to fly them into a remote location, and then use watercraft to navigate via river through the park's many beautiful valleys. Very expensive proposition. At the time of our auto trip to Alaska we needed a less expensive method.

The construction of the Dalton Highway to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields opened up car access to Arctic Alaska. (At the time of our visit you needed a permit to go all the way to the north coast.) The highway, a rather challenging dirt road, traverses hundreds of miles of spectacular and almost unspoiled wilderness. The ever present pipeline may mar the view a little (left), and heavy trucks occasionally disturb the peace but it is a unique experience. Meals were unusual. The endless roadside streams, which few if any people fish, yielded enough Arctic grayling for a meal, in minutes, and the adjacent brush yielded up a potful of blueberries just as fast.

The national park boundary comes within a few miles of the road for a short stretch, and you may park your car and hike cross-country to enter. But it is not that easy. The park is separated from the road by a river and a ridge of hills.

First, you walk under the pipeline! The main channel of the Dietrich river is too deep to cross. You must find a place on the map where the river "braids" into multiple shallow channels which can be waded.

North to Alaska! Driving by car to Alaska has been a personal dream since my childhood. In the summer of 1986 circumstances permitted me to take this trip. Living mostly out of the back of a pickup truck with occasional nights at motels, we spent an incredible 56 days on the road and experienced many adventures. The endless rain of that summer, including two stretches of more than a week of non-stop rain cut way down on the photography. But you do get used to being wet all the time if you're having enough fun!

Our experience was crossing five channels of icy cold water from knee to hip deep. The cold, stormy weather made it extra challenging. Note in the photo the small channel which braids further in the distance. Also, note all the footprints in the mud. None of these are human! Included were fresh bear prints though we never saw the actual bear.

We then proceeded up a small but steep canyon towards the ridge line. A strange feature was the exposure of the permafrost (photo, below left). In the Arctic, the ground is permanently frozen a few feet below the surface. As the canyon became steeper, shadier, and colder, more and larger sheets of ice clung to its walls. Eventually the canyon had the look of an iceberg!

We finally reached the ridgeline after a precarious hand and foot scramble out of the canyon. And now we learned the hard way the harshest aspect of Arctic travel. The permafrost below the tundra melts to a depth of perhaps two feet during the summer creating an ocean of mud.

Mounds of scrubby little plants call tussocks provide the only solid footing. Walking is accomplished by hopping from tussock to tussock. If you miss, you sink in the mud. Bob Marshall, founder of the Wilderness Society, was one of the early explorers of the Brooks Range. He said that "hiking the tussocks" was the most difficult aspect of exploring the Arctic.

As we reach our destination of tiny Kaarak Lake (left), within the national park, we pitch our tent on an uneven hillside with solid ground. The rains come again at dusk and continue all night and into the next day. As basically a city person, I found the sense of aloneness to be very powerful. We were told you must be very self-sufficient here; that there would be no help if you got into trouble. You might not even be found. A very profound concept.

With the continued bad weather, we headed back to the truck the next day. The "real" wilderness of bush Alaska was a demanding and unforgetable experience.

And, by the way, the Arctic is the land of the midnight sun, in fact close to 24 hour daylight during July. Unfortunately, we never did actually see the sun while we were here!