Gates Of The Arctic National Park & Preserve guide · 1 min read
Floatplanes from Bettles: Reaching the Park
There are no roads into Gates of the Arctic, so most people arrive by air. Most visitors book an air taxi, flying in small aircraft that carry floats for water landings or tundra tires for rough ground.
Several small airlines operating out of Fairbanks run daily flights to the gateway communities of Bettles, Anaktuvuk Pass and Coldfoot, and some pilots will set you down at a remote lake on a custom trip.
Bettles is one of the gateway communities, and it has no road either. Reaching it means taking one of the daily flights out of Fairbanks. Once there, you will find several air taxis, outfitters and lodges, along with a small shop and a post office. The Bettles Ranger Station and Visitor Center sits just outside the park boundary, and its exhibits, park films, talks and trip-planning tools make it a useful stop before you head out.
Anaktuvuk Pass is the largest village near the park, and its airstrip is the most heavily used among the local villages. Air taxis fly in regularly, and the National Park Service keeps an office there. Some air taxi operators also offer flightseeing fly-overs. One sample route runs from Deadhorse past Anaktuvuk Pass and Bettles to Coldfoot at about 2,000 feet, and some passengers choose to spend the night in Anaktuvuk Pass.
After landing, you can go hiking, pack-rafting or backpacking, and backpacking is allowed across the entire park. Nothing here is a marked trail. Thick plant growth, clumps of tussock grass, soft wet ground and many streams and rivers all slow your pace, and seasoned hikers count six miles as a solid day. Plan for river crossings, since water levels rise and fall with the weather. Expect the highest water in spring during runoff.
