Kobuk Sand Dunes

Alaska, as legend has it, is chock-full of amazing places. One of those amazing places, believe it or not, is a large complex of sand dunes north of the arctic circle. Yep. It's true. I first heard about the Kobuk Sand Dunes roughly ten years ago. Ever since then I've have had an itch to travel there and see what they are all about. It was everything I expected... a bunch of sand. But it was more than just a bunch of sand. It was close to 25 square miles of sand in the middle of a boreal forest, the Sahara of the arctic. It was hot sand on bare feet in a place underlain by permafrost. It was a climax of contrast. It was more than my imagination ever expected.Four of us flew into the Kobuk Dunes for a two day base camp before moving on to Agiak Lake in the middle of Gates of the Arctic (more on that later). Two days gave us time to wonder around the dunes and get a good sense of what they had to offer. While endless miles of sand may seem sterile and lifeless at first, they proved to be quite the contrary. During our time there we saw three wolves which is a pretty good number considering wolves are classic evaders of humans when they know of our presence. Wolf tracks were everywhere telling us there were far more wolves than we were seeing. On one occasion we walked down the dune to our camp then twenty minutes later walked back up the dune to find fresh wolf tracks in our 20 minute old shoe prints. Our shoe prints were in view of camp but we never saw the wolf that left them.Most of the dunes are without plants or have very few hearty plants loosely scattered about. One of the greatest contrast in this area is the transition from dune to forest. It's sharp! The west side of the dunes where we were camped is bordered by Kavet Creek. On one side of the creek you have nothing but sand, on the other side nothing but spruce forest. And flowing right down between the two is a beautiful little clear creek full of small grayling.What an extraordinary place. From the dunes we slung our backpacks over our shoulders and hiked off of the sand and 1.5 miles through the forest to the Kobuk River where we were picked up by a float plane. The clients had a great time everywhere we went except for this 1.5 mile hike through the woods to the river, which they termed "the hike from hell". It was a challenging hike through brush, tussock, bog and such but without hiking it they would have never really known the true arctic. Our pilot picked us up around noon on the Kobuk River and had us on the shores of Agiak Lake in Gates of the Arctic in time for dinner in the middle of the Brooks Range.