Gates of the Arctic National Park United States

Legendary

Slightly larger than Belgium, this expansive park is located completely north the Arctic Circle.

Photo by GPA Photo Archive

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There are no roads into this park. No trails, no campgrounds, no visitor center, not a single marked path anywhere in an area larger than Belgium.

Fewer than 12,000 people visit in an entire year. Some popular national parks see that many before lunch.

The whole park sits north of the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska, making it the northernmost national park in the United States. It covers more than 8.4 million acres of the Brooks Range, the northernmost stretch of the Rocky Mountains.

Alaska Native people have lived across this landscape for more than 12,000 years. Families still hunt and travel here today, as they always have.

The park's name comes from one man's moment of wonder. In 1929, a forester named Bob Marshall was exploring a river here when he passed between two mountains standing on either side of the water.

He thought they looked like a giant doorway leading north. He called them the Gates of the Arctic, and the name stuck.

Marshall spent 13 months living in a tiny gold mining town nearby, mapping land no one had charted. He later helped start an organization dedicated to protecting wild places.

Decades passed before anything happened. In 1968, park officials proposed protecting the area, but the president at the time chose not to act.

Then on December 1, 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared the area a national monument. Two years later, Congress made it a full national park and preserve.

About 85 percent of the park is now protected as wilderness. That means no buildings, no roads, and no development of any kind, ever.

Caribou migrate across the tundra in enormous herds. Grizzly bears, wolves, moose, and Dall sheep roam freely, and six rivers run wild through the valleys.

Fly in by bush plane from the small towns of Bettles or Coldfoot, since that's the only practical way in. Hike toward the Arrigetch Peaks, a cluster of sharp granite spires rising straight out of the tundra. Stand at the actual Gates themselves, between Frigid Crags and Boreal Mountain, where Bob Marshall stood almost a century ago.