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Tongass National Forest
Alaska
Alaska has been "super-sizing" for a lot longer than McDonald's restaurants have. Everything—or so it seems—in the 49th state is bigger than in the Lower 48, national forests included. The biggest of the big is Tongass National Forest, which encompasses roughly 17 million acres and extends 500 miles northward along the Pacific coastline from the Alaska-Canada border. As a matter of scale, consider that the largest national forest outside of Alaska (Nevada's Toiyabe) weighs in at 4 million acres.
The Tongass' terrain varies from coastal rain forests to volcanic uplands, from glacial fjords to tundra meadows. Wide stream valleys carved by glaciers slice through dense forests, and the forest's tall snow-capped mountain ranges count some of the highest peaks in North America.
Often called "the forest of islands," the Tongass is in many locations only accessible by air or boat, via a route known as the Inside Passage. The Tongass is also characterized by its lush rainforest of gigantic western hemlock and Sitka spruce. A wet, maritime climate ensures that most areas of the Tongass are doused with anywhere from 8 to 13 or more feet of rainfall a year. Prime growing conditions for the world's largest temperate rainforest means that visitors to the forest should invest in good raingear before arriving.
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