While in the Talkeetna / Denali National Park area of Alaska we took a flight seeing tour of Mount McKinley (Denali) and landed on a glacier for a few minutes of play time in the snow.
We were hoping for a clear day and ended up booking our tour around noon after making a final assessment of the weather. Our tour would be at 4pm.
At the Talkeetna Air office (just outside of downtown) we paid our fees, signed our waivers, and got fitted with our galoshes. Michael, our pilot, drove us to the plane in a golf cart and gave us a quick safety rundown. There was another family of three joining us on this flight. Once in the air we had beautiful views of Talkeetna, the rivers running through the area, many lakes, and forest areas. As we gained altitude mountains turned from green to brown to white. We were in an area with many glaciers. We could hear Michael narrate our tour through the headsets and he assured us both sides of the plane would get the clear Denali views as we approached. There were several times we felt a little too close to the cliffs.
Our glacier runway was a long stretch of white compacted snow in a horseshoe-shaped valley. Our crew exited the plane and took in the beauty of it all. It did not take long for a snowball fight to break out. While on the ground we witnessed two other planes come in for a landing.
This outing was one of the highlights of our trip. Watch the video of the fantastic scenery and fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment