Flying Over the summit of Mt McKinley (Denali)

June 18; 6:00 pm
Perhaps the most incredible, beautiful, awe inspiring adventure of our life!!!

We were able yo get on the summit flight to Mt McKinley today. We went with
www.denaliair.com
Be sure to check out the photo section of this website.

The photo shows the plane we flew in.  An 8 passenger, twin engine. prop.
The pilot was young, very intelligent. He narrated with geology, geography, and history of the area.
It began as a clear sunny day, but a laye of clouds moved in.
He flew us below the cloud layer, pointing out various mountains, valleys, rivers, and glaciers.
Constantly telling us the altitude, elevation of mountains, and the outdoor temps.
As  he neared Denali, he looked for a hole in the clouds, spotting blue sky above he announced "we're going to shoot through that hole".  We did. At about 12,000 ft altitude we put on our oxygen masks.
During the entire trip we had on headsets with earphone and mikes. We could ask questions to the pilot.

As soon as we broke through you could see the majestic mountain. We headed right towards it.
Getting within a distance so close we could see a group of mountain climbers, roped together, nearly to the summit.   We could see their trail in the snow, and their last campsite.
We circled the summit twice, tilting the plane to see various angles, and the North and South slopes.

 The greening of the mountains climbs higher each day.

 The red roofs are the Princess Denali Lodge, where we work.

                                                              Fang Mountain

 We break through the cloud layer to see MtMcKinley in the distance.

Adding these photos(7/15)

 On the left side slope is where we could see by eye, a group of 8 mountain climbers headedto the summitt.  Could see their tracks, and basecamp below them.

 Fanf Mountain, used by bushpilots as a visual navigational aid.

The return flight was especially fun when we approached the runway in Healy. We followed the Nenana River and its valley. The pilot communicated with 2 other tour planes that were also landing.  They negotiated who would land in what sequence.  We were first. Landed and turned around on the runway, no taxi area there, so we taxied back up the runway....here comes number 2, but the pilots must have done this many times. We got a good view of it landing.

The DenaliAir van dropped us off at The Homestead (our housing), leaving us with great memories of the summit of Mt McKinnley!