Near the end of our trip, the weather finally cooperated in allowing us the chance to make a flight to Mt. McKinley. Denali was the original name, which is an Indian name for "The Great One", but President McKinley was in office when Denali National Park was established, so coincidentally his name was given to the mountain. Alaskans still call the mountain Denali, but all the maps have it named otherwise. "Denali" is the highest mountain in North America, with an altitude of 20,320 ft.
We had 6 other passengers so the company, K2 aviation chose a twin engine plane for our flight. Being the eager one of the group, I was near the door when the pilot said that who ever wanted the co-pilot seat, to go for it. I bailed in before anyone said a word. (Just hoped that the pilot didn't keel over and leave me to fly that plane!)
Anyway, we were in a valley away from the mountain range, so we had some time to climb in altitude and survey the landscape.
Cloud cover is usually a problem flying to Denali, which was the case on our 3 previous reservations that were cancelled. Today it was just barely good enough to go up. We came in flying under the clouds at about 7k altitude. The normal path the pilots take in, is to follow a glacier. Kinda looks like a super highway of ice, though I wouldn't want to land on it.
We followed the glacier up to where it began near Denali, at which point the saltly old bush pilot calmly said "I think that it's clear enough to climb through the clouds to ascend above them and see Denali better".
OK, that was interesting, He began climbing to over 11k and finally popped up through the cloud ceiling to show us all a hellava view!
And this is Denali, as you can see the north and south peaks.
This was really an awesome experience seeing the mountain in this fashion. Here's a link to see a few more pics at photobucket.
http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x190/Bigriver07/Denali/?start=allAlso, here's a few vids!
