Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve

Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula protects a vast, remote volcanic landscape centered on Aniakchak Crater, a six-mile-wide caldera formed about 3,700 years ago when an earlier mountain collapsed into its magma chamber. The area includes crater lakes, ash-carved valleys, glacially altered terrain, and Pacific coastline, with Surprise Lake feeding the Aniakchak River through the rim to Aniakchak Bay. Its cool, wet, stormy climate supports tundra, bogs, and coastal habitats for caribou, moose, brown bears, wolves, and marine mammals. Little known until the 1920s, it gained national monument status in 1978 and its present designation in 1980.

Port Heiden, Alaska · United States