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Katmai National Park and Preserve
This
park has the honor of containing
two volcanoes, glaciers and lakes. As you can easily see there is
a variety of things to do and see at Katmaj.
Katmai National Park and Preserve is located in southwestern Alaska,
established as a national monument 1918, as a national park 1980.
Located on the northeastern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, the park
contains Katmai Volcano, 6,716 ft high, Novarupta Volcano, and the
Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.
In June 1912 the newly formed Novarupta erupted violently, blowing off
the entire mountaintop and showering volcanic ash over Kodiak Island and
much of the Alaska mainland. The eruption formed the ash-filled Valley
of Ten Thousand Smokes and probably drained molten material from beneath
the peak of nearby Katmai, causing the collapse of its top and forming a
large crater.
When a National Geographic Society expedition discovered the valley in
1916, they found numerous fumaroles,
only a few of which remain. Katmai crater, about 3 miles wide and about
3,700 ft deep, is lined with glaciers, some of which flow into the
blue-green lake on its floor. Salmon abound in the park’s waters, and
brown bear, moose, and wolf are common.
Katmai National Monument was created to preserve the famed Valley of Ten
Thousand Smokes, a spectacular forty square mile, 100 to 700 foot deep,
pyroclastic ash flow deposited by Novarupta Volcano.
Katmai is famous for volcanoes, brown bears, fish, and rugged wilderness
and is also the site of the Brooks River National Historic Landmark with
North America's highest concentration of prehistoric human dwellings.
There are at least fourteen volcanoes in Katmai considered "active",
none of which are currently erupting.
Brown bear and salmon are very active in Katmai. The number of brown
bears has grown to more than 2,000. During the peak of the world's
largest sockeye salmon run each July, and during return of the "spawned
out" salmon in September, forty to sixty bears congregate in Brooks Camp
along the Brooks River and the Naknek Lake and Brooks Lake shorelines.
Brown bears along the 480 mile Katmai Coast also enjoy clams, crabs, and
an occasional whale carcass.
A rich variety of other wildlife is found in the Park as well.
There is plenty room for great diversity of wildlife in Katmai which
encompasses millions of acres of pristine wilderness, with wild rivers
and streams, rugged coastlines, broad green glacial hewn valleys, active
glaciers and volcanoes, and Naknek Lake.
Alaska National Parks
To experience the beauty
of Alaska, we have included a few of the Alaska National Parks
which you may wish to visit.
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