Gates of the Arctic National Park, covering much of the Brooks range in northern Alaska, is one of the finest wilderness areas of the world. With a surface area of 8.4 million acres (336 thousand squares kilometers), it is four times the size of Yellowstone, and only slightly smaller than Switzerland. What is remarkable is that such a large chunk of land has remained one of the most remote and unspoiled places in the world. No roads lead into the park, and there are no trails or bridges inside. One has to find and earn his way into the tundra, immensely vast but still subtle in the texture and wetness variations of its miniature habitats.

The Brooks range is so vast that each of its mountains have a different character, however the Arrigetch Peaks area, (pictured here) a place of gothic black granite spires and pinnacles reaching haphazardly into the clouds, is considered by many to be the most spectacular part