National Park Service Celebrates Birthday With Waived Fees

Maija Lukin

The National Park Service is blowing out candles this week. Friday, August 25th entrance to all 20 Alaskan National Parks will be free – including Denali National Park & Reserve.

The fee waiver includes entrance fees, commercial tour fees, and transportation entrance fees. Fees collected by third parties such as reservation, camping, tours, and concessions are not waved.

One of the least visited and most exotic National Parks is one few Alaskans even know about. Half a million caribou migrate a bucket list park near Kotzebue. Their tracks crisscross the sculpted 300-foot-high golden dunes that make up Kobuk Valley National Park.

National Park Service Majia Lukin: “It’s a boreal forest, which is something that makes it really unique. There is these boreal spruce trees that pop up in the middle of sand dunes. No palm trees.” 

NASA uses the dunes to test equipment used on Mars expeditions, and the vision of sand dunes pushing the horizon ever every direction is other worldly.

Majia Lukin: “You see these huge sand dunes, and they really are sand dunes, it is like being in a desert, and people charter planes to get there and they camp on the sand dunes. It’s just an amazing sight.”

Any fourth grade student can get a free annual pass through the Every Kid in a Park program. Active duty military and citizens with a permanent disability can also get free passes. For more information on discounted and free passes, visit the America the Beautiful National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass page.

Story as aired on KSRM News :http://www.radiokenai.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Dorene-on-NPS-birthday.mp3