Alaska. Roadless Paradise at Lake Clark: America’s Third Least-Visted National Park
Although just 160 kilometers southwest of Anchorage, Alaska’s Lake Clark National Park is not easy to get to. The park has no roads, so visitors must travel by boat or airplane. Covering 16,308 square kilometers, the park is slightly larger than the State of Connecticut. Inside are parts of three mountain ranges, the Chigmit and Neacola Mountains, and the northern-most part of the Aleutians. Within its Aleutian Mountain section are two volcanos, Mt. Redoubt (3108m) and Mt. Iliamna (3053m), both stratovolcanoes formed by successive layers of lava. Remarkably, Mt. Redoubt’s 1989 eruption caused all four engines on a KLM Boeing 747 to partly fail before the pilots were able to make a safe landing in Anchorage.
Extending 68 kilometers from southwest to northeast, Lake Clark is the park’s largest body of water. Its initial name was Qizhjeh Vena, meaning “a place where people gather” in the native Dena’ina Athabascan language. Along with rugged mountains, the park’s diverse terrain includes U-shaped valleys, outwash plains, glaciers, rainforests, and salt marshes. Animals found in the park range from bald eagles and moose to caribou, brown bear, Dall’s sheep, timber wolves, beluga whales, sea lions, and porpoise. The park also protects habitat important to the Bristol Bay commercial salmon industry. The park’s lower elevations are dominated by boreal forest comprised of white and black spruce. To the southeast is Cook Inlet, named after British naval officer and explorer James Cook who surveyed the area in 1778.
The larger region that encompasses Lake Clark has been occupied by humans for at least 7,500 years. Today, its native population includes groups of Northern Athabaskan Dena’ina. The first Europeans to reside in the area were Russian traders who settled in what is now the town of Kijik during 19th century. Tourism arrived in 1942 when Leon “Babe” Alsworth established an air taxi service connecting Lake Clark to Anchorage. Lake Clark was designated a national monument in 1978 and a national park and preserve two years later. About a third of the unit’s area is national preserve where sport hunting is permitted. Another large portion of the park falls within the Jay S. Hammond Wilderness, including three wild and scenic rivers, the Chilikadrotna, the Mulchatna, and the Tlikakila. Lake Clark is the seventh largest U.S. national park and among the least visited with an average annual visitation between 16,000 and 18,000.
Our twin engine Piper Navajo departed Merrill Field in Anchorage bound for Port Alsworth on Lake Clark’s southeastern shore. At the controls was Babe’s son, Glen Alsworth. The route took us across the Cook Inlet and then through a narrow U-shaped valley before passing through Lake Clark Pass (320m). We landed on a gravel airstrip just outside of town. Often seen on the airstrip are four-engine Douglas DC-4 transport aircraft that bring food, spare parts, and other supplies.
The town of Port Alsworth (population 158) has few tourist amenities. There are three or four guest houses/lodges, a National Park Service ranger station, and a concessionaire where visitors can rent rafts. After a night at the Farm Lodge which overlooks Hardenberg Bay, we loaded our backpacks into a Cessna 206 floatplane for a 25-minute flight to Little Lake Clark where we would begin our planned hike up a U-shaped glacial valley. After unloading we put on our packs and began our trek along the Chokotonk River. Within the flat valley terrain, the Chokotonk’s channel splits into a series of distributaries that we crossed several times while hiking upstream. Each time we waded across a section of the river, I changed out of my high-top hiking boots and into “wet” boots. Appearing a milky-grey from tiny particles of glacial flour, the icy water made by feet and ankles numb. Whenever possible, we hiked in the morning when water levels were the lowest. At night my companions and I pitched tents in tundra vegetation on a side of the valley. We came prepared for mosquitos that arrived in hordes. Unlike the nimble urbanite variety, Little Lake Clark’s mosquitos are large and unhurried. I’ve carried a mosquito hat on many African treks without using it. That first evening at Little Lake Clark, I was happy to have another barrier between my face and the clouds of bloodthirsty insects.
Returning to Port Alsworth, we spent an evening at the Farm Lodge before departing early the next morning for a lake fishing trip in a small boat driven by a guide. Our route took us northeast for about 40 minutes, towards a fishing site along Lake Clark’s west bank. Collectively, our group caught a half-dozen Northern Pike and few Arctic grayling. Since the Northern Pike is a carnivorous fish with sharp teeth, I let our guide extract the hook each time I reeled one in.
