Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve

Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve is a northernmost U.S. National Park in Alaska lying north of the Arctic Circle and has 8,472,506 acres. There are no roads in the park so not much people come to visit there.The park headquarters is in Fairbanks.Its eastern boundary is the Dalton Highway and the Alyeska Pipeline. The park extends northward beyond the northern flank of the Brooks Range into the southern Arctic Foothills. Its southern boundary lies beyond the south flank of the Brooks Range within foothills and depositional basins of interior Alaska.

The park is located the west of the Dalton Highway, centered on the Brooks Range and covering the north and south slopes of the mountains including the Endicott Mountains and part of the Schwatka Mountains. The park straddles the continental divide, separating the drainages of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.The park also features six Wild and Scenic Rivers:Alatna River 83 miles (134 km)John River 52 miles (84 km)Kobuk River 110 miles (177 km)the North Fork of the Koyukuk River 102 miles (164 km)part of the Noatak RiverTinayguk River 44 miles (71 km). The northernmost section of the park includes small portions of the Arctic foothills tundra. The Brooks Range occupies the central section of the park, running on an east-west line. To the south of the Brooks Range the Ambler-Chandalar Ridge, with associated valleys and lakes, runs east-west. The southernmost portion of the park includes the Kobuk-Selawik Lowlands, with the headwaters of the Kobuk River.

The Brooks Range has seen repeated glaciation, with the most recent called the Itkillik glaciation from about 24,000 years ago to roughly 1500 to 1200 years before the present. Therefore, you can see many glacier morphology in this area such as U-shaped valley, glacial moraine, glacial lake and many other landforms.

(Geologic map: http://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3125/sim3125_sheet.pdf)

Activities people usually do in the park are camping andsport hunting which are only permitted in the national preserve. A person must have all required licenses and permits and follow all other state regulations to hunt and trap in the preserve.