Can you hike in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

Visitors can enjoy hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, rafting, packrafting, and canoeing. Wildlife viewing, birding, berry picking, and photography are also popular activities. While there are no roads in ANWR, the Dalton Highway and ANWR touch briefly just north of Atigun Pass.

What is the average precipitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

Precipitation averages 12-18 inches in the west and 8-12 inches in the east. Moving north and across the Continental Divide in the Brooks Range, the northernmost mountain chain in Alaska, the elevational range of the park (1,000 to 8,000+ feet) produces local variations in weather and climate.

How do you get to ANWR?

Getting here is a journey in itself.

1. Hire a commercial tour operator to arrange transportation into ANWR. Air taxis from Fairbanks are the most common method of traveling into the refuge.
2. Book a charter air taxi from Fairbanks on your own.
3. Drive the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse and charter a flight from there.

What is the controversy surrounding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

The US government is pushing forward with controversial plans to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, by laying out the terms of a leasing programme that would give oil companies access to the area. The wildlife refuge in north-eastern Alaska sits above billions of barrels of oil.

Can you live in the Arctic Refuge?

In North America, our Arctic is populated by both the Inupiaq and Gwich’in. While both adventure seekers and residents travel within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, there are two permanent villages whose livelihoods are tied to the Arctic Refuge and have been for thousands of years: Kaktovik and Arctic Village.

How do I get to the gates of the Arctic?

Access to the park begins in Fairbanks, Alaska. There are several small airlines in Fairbanks that provide daily flights into the gateway communities of Bettles and Anaktuvuk Pass, and flag stops to Coldfoot. Most visitors access the park by air taxi, in small aircraft equipped with floats or tundra tires.

How global warming affects animals in the Arctic?

More woody plants, more precipitation, and warmer temperatures compromise the survival of grazing animals such as reindeer and muskoxen. Warmer winter temperatures have also increased the layers of ice in snow, making food more difficult to dig up in winter. Fish are moving as seas warm.

Does the Arctic have snow all year?

The climate of the Arctic is characterized by long, cold winters and short, cool summers. Some parts of the Arctic are covered by ice (sea ice, glacial ice, or snow) year-round, and nearly all parts of the Arctic experience long periods with some form of ice on the surface.

Why is drilling in Alaska bad?

Oil development would bring roads, airstrips, heavy machinery, noise and pollution. This would damage the refuge’s fragile tundra ecosystem and disrupt age-old migration and denning patterns for caribou, polar bears and other animals.

Why do they want to drill in the Arctic?

For the sake of the people and animals that call the Arctic home—not to mention the global climate—we must keep offshore oil in the ground for good. There’s no climate-safe future that involves drilling in the Arctic Ocean. It’s the only way to prevent a devastating spill and end our dependence on fossil fuels.

Why are humans banned from the Arctic Refuge?

Because Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is so vast, is so largely untouched by human activity, and contains such a wide variety of fragile ecosystems, it has long been under scrutiny for signs of potential climate change.

Is Arctic National Wildlife Refuge public land?

PUBLIC LAND The Arctic Refuge covers 19.6 million acres in northeast Alaska, and includes the Mollie Beattie Wilderness, the second largest wilderness area in the U.S. at 8 million acres.