It is three times larger than any other national forest. The Tongass is a magnificent coastal rain forest, comprised mostly of huge Sitka spruce and western hemlock which have taken hundreds of years to attain maturity. Though home to the world's largest temperate rain forest, almost half of the Tongass is covered by ice, water, muskeg and rock.
Regal mountains rise from tidewater to overlook a mostly undeveloped, isolated landscape.
Few places in the world have the geologic and climatic variations that sculpt this landscape. At sea level, rain may fall year round. Go up 1,600 feet and the climate is too harsh for trees. Temperate rain forest grows profusely at sea level less than a two-mile's hike from alpine rock lands where buttercups and sedges cling to a tenuous existence in an icy, windy environment. Some make their way all the way to the sea.