The Toll You Pay to Enter This Eden is Sweat, Pain and Fear

Not far from Siberia, our second-largest national park is a haven for bear, moose, wolf … but not tourists

It's the second-largest unit in the national park system, the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, yet few Americans have ever heard of it. Only 2,000 people a year visit it, compared with the more than nine million who go to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The toll you pay to get into this Alaskan paradise is sweat, pain and fear but that, as the author is reminded on his second visit, makes it all the more intoxicating.

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