In the evening, we booked a Denali flight to see the mountains up close. For a 7 pm flight, we checked in about 30 minutes before and boarded the 6-seater plane on time. There began our amazing adventure flying over the Denali.
Plane took off and within minutes we were in the sky overlooking the mountains. Everything seemed to look small – the lakes looked like puddles, the roads were just thin lines drawn and the mountains seemed so close we could almost reach.
The aerial view of the landscape beneath us was incredible. The pilot was so good and gave us tons of information about the different mountains and glaciers.
We flew over the Muldrow glacier in Denali and as per the pilot – the glacier has been surging since last fall which is considered a rare phenomena when a glacier surface starts cracking and crevasses open up. In general, ‘the glacier moves about 3 inches a day but now it is gaining about 30-60 feet daily’, as per Washingtonpost.com . The same happened with the Muldrow during 1956-57 (over 50 years ago). It was quite amazing to see the glacier.
As we flew over higher elevation, it became colder and there were clouds coming in our way. But we got an amazing view of the Denali up close and we also saw the climbers who appeared to be like small dots on the snowy Denali & the base camp. It was incredible to see the climbers braving the cold and harsh conditions to summit the tallest mountain in North America.
Our 1.5 hours flight was such an unforgettable experience and the perfect finish to our Alaska trip. Next day, Day 7 – we checked out of the cabins and had breakfast in the Cabin café and started our drive back to Anchorage while stopping on the way at the Denali north view and Southview. And by 6 in the evening, we reached the airport – and boarded our flight back home which was delayed by 2 hours. At 10 pm, the sun was still shining in Alaska and we came home next day with lots of beautiful memories.
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