Images of Gates of the Arctic National Park – Northern Alaska, taken in June 2015.

As with most of the parks in Alaska you cannot simply drive into Gates of the Arctic National Park. The only way to tour the park was by floatplane out of Bettles. My first flight into the park I flew through the “gates”, Boreal Mountain and Frigid Crags, and then up to the Nunamiut Eskimo village of Anaktuvuk Pass which lies in the northern region of the park. We landed on a small lake near the village and were immediately met by a North Slope Borough Police officer. Everyone has their own view of exactly what happened next but the result was that I ended up locked up in the back of his police SUV. I will endlessly declare my innocence but this event should forever be a warning to anyone that messes with…okay, the truth is the officer wanted to know if we had seen some overdue hikers on our flight and after discussing our route he offered to give us a ride into town. My guide Kevin hopped into the front seat and I was forced to get into the back where I was trapped as the doors don’t open from the inside (for obvious reasons). Once in town I had to be “let out”, Kevin apologized for not letting me sit up front and I told him that I refused to pay extra for the “prisoner experience” even though I got some cool pictures from inside and I would put the experience on my “rap sheet” to add to my “street cred”!

My second floatplane trip into the park was to the Arrigetch Peaks, a cluster of rugged granite spires in the Endicott Mountains of the central Brooks Range. The name means “fingers of the outstretched hand” in the Inupiat language. Originally this was scheduled as an all day trip which would allow me to hike into the area but smoke from a nearby forest fire grounded all flights and forced me to see if conditions improved the next day. Luckily the smoke cleared making the flight possible. And what a trip it was! This was the area I had wanted to see from the moment I began my research on this trip. The jagged mountain peaks are incredible and the clouds in the area added to the dramatic views. We landed on Circle Lake but unfortunately because of the time issue presented by my flight back to Fairbanks later that day I wasn’t able to make the hike into the area to get the pictures I wanted. What I did get were images from the air that, although amazing, in no way truly represent the spectacular views I was lucky enough to see on that flight!