See America's National Parks

Alaska's National Parks

Gateway City: Anchorage, Alaska

"Peak Experiences"

Mount McKinley in Denali National Park tops the continent at 20,320 feet, dominating the vast landscape of Interior Alaska. Touring Denali would be the first stop on a three-park itinerary, and includes a bus ride on a wildlife tour of the park interior and a flight around Mount McKinley and the high glaciers of the Alaska Range. The trip moves on to America's largest national park, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve. This preeminent mountain wilderness boasts nine of the 16 highest mountains in America as four mountain ranges converge in the park. Volcanoes, vast rivers, glaciers, unbounded wilderness and a rich human history await the visitor. Last stop is a park where the mountains and glaciers meet the sea, at Kenai Fjords National Park. A couple of hours by highway south of Anchorage, visitors can see glaciers up close on land and as they calve great icebergs into the ocean. The steep mountainsides along the park coast host a rich marine life at sea level, and quickly rise up to the vast year-round white of the Harding Icefield.

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"Bear With Us"

Nowhere in America can a visitor see more grizzly bears than Alaska, and nowhere in Alaska are they easier to see than in three national parks. Katmai National Park hosts the densest population of grizzly or brown bears in the world. In July, upwards of 50 bears converge on the Brooks River to feed on salmon moving up to spawning grounds. Daily flights from Anchorage offer easy access; bear viewing platforms provide visitors with great, safe views of the bears, and a lodge and campground are available to overnight visitors. Less developed areas on the coast of Katmai and of Lake Clark National Park & Preserve also offers bear viewings on one-day or multi-day trips by park concessionaires from Anchorage or Kodiak. Interior Alaska bears are smaller, but equally dramatic as they roam the tundra at Denali National Park. A five-hour drive north of Anchorage, Denali visitors frequently see bears from the wildlife bus tours offered into the park interior.

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"Northern Fortunes"

This itinerary loosely links places where, among other things, pioneers chased dreams of wealth. From south to north, here's the route. Sitka National Historical Park. This was the capital of Russian America, a seat of power as Russia sought to exploit Alaska's wealth of furs, fish and other treasures. Today, the park preserves the Russian Bishop's House, the best-preserved building of the era, and the area where the last major battle between Russians and the Tlingit Indians was fought. Moving north, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway preserves many of the buildings and artifacts of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, as well as manages the Chilkoot Trail. The latter was one of two major routes into the Yukon, and is still hiked by thousands of people each summer. To the north and west, near the middle of America's largest national park, is Kennecott, once the richest copper mine in the country and now part of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Many of the turn of the century buildings, including a 14-story mill building, are open for tours. Farthest north, in Barrow, is the Inupiat Heritage Center, a NPS affiliated area.

Together with New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (Massachusetts), the center tells the story of the commercial whaling boom in the arctic. In the mid-1800s, more than 2,000 whaling ships made the trip from Massachusetts to the Arctic Ocean, changing the face of Barrow and the arctic forever. The story of that period and the long heritage of the Inupiat people are the focus of the center.

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"America Untamed"

One of the state travel organization's promotional lines is "Beyond Your Dreams, Within Your Reach." This itinerary follows that idea of relatively easy access to very big, wild places. Start in Glacier Bay National Park in Southeast Alaska for a look at land just revealed by retreating glaciers. Whether seen from the deck of a cruise or tour ship, or the waterline seat of a kayak, the dynamic forces of nature at play in the park are always remarkable. Hiking across tundra and traversing wilderness expanses as a self-reliant traveler or as part of a guided trip is an activity in several parks, including Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve and Lake Clark National Park & Preserve. North of Fairbanks, Gates offers 8 million acres of wilderness above the Arctic Circle. Lake Clark is a short plane ride from Anchorage and offers many fine hiking options. Floating by canoe or paddling a kayak is can take you along the historic Yukon River, visiting historic cabins and viewing wildlife. The northwest national parks in Alaska offer relatively tame waters on the Noatak National Preserve and Kobuk Valley National Park in a setting surrounded by vast open country.

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