Kobuk Valley National Park
This is not your normal National Park. It’s the most remote and least visited park in the entire system at less than 10,000 visitors per year. There are no roads or trails. You essentially have three options – backcountry hiking, boat in on a river, or fly in using one of the many outfits located in Kotzebue, Alaska. One of the main attractions here is the caribou migration which occurs each fall where ~500,000 caribou work their way across the Kobuk River. Another main attraction are the Kobuk Sand Dunes which appear out of no where on a flight into the park. Bottom line – this park takes a lot of planning to make a successful trip. We will try to simplify it for you below.
When to Go
Anytime in the summer or early fall should work here. Keep in mind the sun does not set for almost all of June and into early July – so you’ll have 24 hours of daylight during this time which is a fun experience by itself. We chose to do in late August which turned out to be cool as well as the park was showing off its fall colors before another long winter hit. If you are interested in the caribou migration – around Labor Day weekend is likely your best bet. The later you get into summer/fall though – the more tricky the weather gets which can limit your already very limited options for experiencing the park. This is literally a trip where you could fly all the way to Kotzebue, have bad weather, and never actually get a chance to get into the park – so some luck is required as well.
How to Get Here
It’s a journey to get here. Again – you have to be dedicated to visit this park. Essentially, you are going to need to fly into either Anchorage or Fairbanks (the two main airports in Alaska). Normally, a journey to either of those airports is a journey in itself. Once you reach either of these locations – you should be able to catch an Alaska Airlines flight to Kotzebue, Alaska which is located in the northwest portion of the state – pretty close to Russia. You can than either walk or catch a quick ride to wherever you happen to be staying (it isn’t a large town).
Trip Length
This really depends on what you want to do. If you are going to take the time to hike into the park or boat down the river – you will likely be here for a week or more. If you are here to fly into the park and maybe some of the surrounding parks for some photos with the intent of flying right back out – you can accomplish that in less than a day. However, keep in mind that the weather is not a guarantee at any point of the year. What you don’t want to do is fly in with the plan of seeing the park in one day and then flying back to Anchorage or Fairbanks the next day. One bad weather day and you are you ruined. Therefore, we would recommend giving yourself 2 days at least. If your flight goes off without a hitch on Day 1 and you don’t have anything else you want to see, you can always change your flight on Alaska and fly back to Fairbanks or Anchorage a day early. These are not typically sold out flights.
Where to Stay
You are not going to find any familiar chain hotels in Kotzebue. There are a couple bed and breakfast spots and one main hotel – Nullagvik Hotel. All are super expensive and you are not going to find a way around that here. We chose to stay at an Airbnb right next to the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center which also serves as the park’s visitor center. Even that was over $200 a night.
What to Do
As mentioned above, this isn’t your typical National Park. You have very limited, but clear options, on how to visit. While it certainly is possible to fly into the park from a few other destinations almost everyone heads in from Kotzebue. That is exactly what we did as well when we visited. We didn’t have the time necessary to hike in or head down the Kobuk River, so we chose to fly into the park to one of the headline destinations, the Kobuk Sand Dunes.
We spent a ton of time researching this trip and trying to find a way to make it cheaper. That is not easy to do while also feeling like you truly experienced the park. Many of the flight operators were charging thousands of dollars PER person to fly into the park and land for a few minutes and then fly out. Then we came across Golden Eagle Outfitters while searching online. They actually have options to fly to both Kobuk Valley and Gates of the Arctic National Park along with three other national park units in the area all within one long day. And they don’t charge per person. They charge by flight.
We chose the Kobuk / Gates of the Arctic combo tour instead of trying to do all 5 stops in one day (though we may come back and do this someday for sure). The original price of this combo flight (in 2019) was $2,275. This was less than half of the price other outfits were looking to charge, and they had good reviews, so we jumped on it. When we arrived at the office in the morning, we were told there were 2 other people looking to fly into both Kobuk and Gates as well. They were on a quest to visit all of the national parks like Scott, and these were their last two. We were given the option to allow them to fly with us or go on a private trip. Given this is a per flight cost, allowing them to go with us dropped our flight charge down to $1,137.50 which was simply incredible. We of course obliged and it was fun to participate in this group’s grand finale to the National Parks.
You don’t really have an assigned flight time, just a flight day assuming the weather holds out. When you check in during the morning, you will be told an approximate time to check back in given that day’s particular weather. For us, it was going to be early afternoon. We headed over to the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center to watch some national park videos and check out some exhibits. We also walked around town a bit and grabbed some lunch. We then returned to Golden Eagle and got the green light to board the plane and head off to the parks!
Our combo flight to Kobuk/Gates of the Arctic was about 4 hours in total with about 15-20 minutes on the ground in each park. In Kobuk, we landed on the Kobuk Sand Dunes which appeared out of nowhere. These were super interesting to walk around on, and also land (and take off) a plane on. The entire flight over Kobuk Valley had amazing views and the fall colors had certainly started to show. The pilot pointed out a couple bears on the ground as well. This park is truly wild, and you are not likely to come across any other humans during your time on the ground. We highly recommend taking this trip.
