Kobuk River Lodge & Gnrl Store

The park was rad The hike in was rugged, there were blueberries everywhere, and the sand dunes were awesomeKobuk Valley is a very cool place That being said, the river lodge is not what it appears to be online The store and the lodge are super sketchyDirty, run-down, and flat out unappealing I'm glad that we didn't actually stay in the lodge, and camped along the river instead When I first contacted the lodge I asked if there was any way of sharing the boat fare with others that wanted to go to the park as well The response was, "im only set up for one party at a time this season." The day that we had scheduled to go on the river, Loren, the guide/manager from the lodge, showed up, not only minutes late, but with two other people in the boat Confused as to who the people were and if they would share the expense, I didn't say anything (and what was I supposed to say, "hey, this is our charter, get off the boat??" Haha) Again the park experience was awesomeAnd the people who came with were super nice and easy to get along with They really didn't 'change' our tripIf you don't count the fact that one of the guests he brought along for free struggled on the hike and vomited multiple times in front of usI felt really bad for her There was NO LUNCH - even though this was advertised on the site After a long day with a crass guide (lots of vulgar language and a constant view of his rear end hanging out of his pants), we made it back to the ghetto store to pay for our trip I very civilly asked if we would split the fare with the other guests on the boat Loren was immediately upset, visibly shaking (I think he was mostly just embarrassed at this point) and said, "If you want to cause trouble, you can swim back to your f*ing camp!" I explained that we didn't 'want trouble', but we wanted to pay a fair share of the boat ride He refused to split the cost and gave other threatening remarks In the end, I paid the whole amount I'm not terribly upset, I'm just leaving this review to inform people In short, if I were to do it again, I would charter a flight to the dunes and steer clear of Loren, the Kobuk River Lodge, and Ambler all together It is just too much money to not know what you are getting

The park was rad The hike in was rugged, there were blueberries everywhere, and the sand dunes were awesomeKobuk Valley is a very cool place
That being said, the river lodge is not what it appears to be online The store and the lodge are super sketchyDirty, run-down, and flat out unappealing I'm glad that we didn't actually stay in the lodge, and camped along the river instead
When I first contacted the lodge I asked if there was any way of sharing the boat fare with others that wanted to go to the park as well The response was, "im only set up for one party at a time this season."
The day that we had scheduled to go on the river, Loren, the guide/manager from the lodge, showed up, not only minutes late, but with two other people in the boat Confused as to who the people were and if they would share the expense, I didn't say anything (and what was I supposed to say, "hey, this is our charter, get off the boat??" Haha)
Again the park experience was awesomeAnd the people who came with were super nice and easy to get along with They really didn't 'change' our tripIf you don't count the fact that one of the guests he brought along for free struggled on the hike and vomited multiple times in front of usI felt really bad for her
There was NO LUNCH - even though this was advertised on the site
After a long day with a crass guide (lots of vulgar language and a constant view of his rear end hanging out of his pants), we made it back to the ghetto store to pay for our trip
I very civilly asked if we would split the fare with the other guests on the boat Loren was immediately upset, visibly shaking (I think he was mostly just embarrassed at this point) and said, "If you want to cause trouble, you can swim back to your f*ing camp!"
I explained that we didn't 'want trouble', but we wanted to pay a fair share of the boat ride He refused to split the cost and gave other threatening remarks In the end, I paid the whole amount
I'm not terribly upset, I'm just leaving this review to inform people In short, if I were to do it again, I would charter a flight to the dunes and steer clear of Loren, the Kobuk River Lodge, and Ambler all together It is just too much money to not know what you are getting