Denali Peak Experience Flight - August 20th, 2022

After being cancelled out of our attempts to take the Denali Grand Tour flight with K2 Aviation due to weather while we were in Talkeetna (Talkeetna, Alaska - August 13th to 14th, 2022), we decided to try again with Denali Air. They have an air strip along George Parks Highway, just south of the Denali National Park entrance. It was on our way, so what did we have to lose by trying?

Saturday we drove from Fairbanks to Denali State Park. Before we left Fairbanks, we ate the lingonberries and blueberries, that we picked during our hike the previous day, with our breakfast (link to Fairbanks post). We scheduled a sightseeing flight with Denali Adventure Tours for noon, since it was on the way.

In the morning, it was partly cloudy. We got excited as we caught partial glimpses of Mount Denali from the road. Will we get to fly this time? Is the third time the charm?

We stopped for gas in Healy. The wind was picking up. It was strong enough to kick up dust. Ann checked weather.com for the wind forecast. It said the wind was going to be 8 mph all day. The wind was not 8 mph. It had to be at least 20 mph. So much for the forecast.

We arrived at the Denali Air private airstrip about half an hour before our check in time. It is located 8 miles south of the Denali National Park entrance, along Parks Highway. There was a construction zone with a pilot car in between the national park and the airstrip, so we wanted to allow plenty of time to get through it and not miss our flight. At the time we checked in, dark clouds were forming to the south, but our flight was still a go.

The plane holds seven passengers. At check in time, four of us were there waiting. The other three were stuck in the construction zone. They had called that they were on their way, so we waited for them. Our plane took off about ten to fifteen minutes past our scheduled flight time, but we were in the air! Yay!

The tour we booked is called the Denali Peak Experience Flight. It does not include a glacier landing like the one we previously booked with K2 Aviation out of Talkeetna. However, this one was flying! The flight is 70 minutes long. They try to circle Denali when they can, but weather usually prevents it. Our flight would stay on the east and north sides of Denali since there was a heavy cloud bank on the south side. And that has been consistent with our experience in the Denali area. The Alaska Mountain Range, which Mount Denali belongs in, seems to block the weather from the south, so it is usually better weather north of the mountain range. Our guess is that K2 Aviation was not flying on this day either. So, if you want a better chance of not having your flight cancelled, we would recommend booking one that leaves from Denali Park or Healy, such as Denali Air. Kantinshna Air Taxi has an airstrip inside Denali National Park and flies out to Kantishna, but they were shut down this year due to the logistics of the Park Road being closed out to Kantishna, which is at the end of the Park Road. Hopefully, they will remain in business.

The disadvantage of Denali Air’s planes versus K2 Aviation’s planes, from what we have seen, is the plane’s wings and propellers are in the way of some of your view. However, the pilot does a great job at tipping the plane so you don’t miss any of the views. The propellers are not an issue when taking in the views with your naked eye because they are moving so fast, but when you take a picture or video, they are definitely in the way of the views in front of the plane. The plane is narrow enough that you can get good views out both sides of the plane, as long as the person sitting across the narrow aisle from you doesn’t block your line of sight. The windows are plastic, but clear. Denali Air asks that you do not touch the windows, especially with the lens of your camera, so the windows remain unscratched. Unfortunately, that means you cannot put your lens against the window to eliminate reflections and glare, but that didn’t seem to be a big issue.

We flew up to Mount Denali, within a mile of it. The north peak was visible, but the south peak (the slightly higher one) was in the clouds. But there was so much more to see than just Mount Denali. The surrounding snow covered mountain peaks are just as beautiful. We also flew over several glaciers, with patches of blue shining through the jagged terrain. The glaciers are very interesting. From a distance, they seem very graceful, flowing through the valleys they are carving, but closer up, they are very jagged and craggy. It is a fascinating combination of textures and forms. Ann even spotted what looked like a cave in one of the glaciers.

The pilot pointed out a group of about a dozen Dall sheep on the side of a mountain. They were a little bit bigger than a white dot, but not by much. Things are farther away than they seem. The pilot also drew our attention to two large rocks, glacier erratics, as we passed over them. After we landed, the pilot showed us a picture of the smaller of the two, with a person on top of it, so you could see how large those rocks really were. They were several stories tall. The person had rock climbed to the top of the rock and looked like a small dot on top. From the plane, the rocks looked like they might be 20 feet tall or so. That was a great lesson in how deceiving sizes are from the plane.

Was it ideal weather for our flight? No. Was it a fantastic experience? Absolutely! Hopefully our pictures do it justice.

Check out our related video: Denali Peak Experience Flight, Alaska

(Ann)