At the summit of Mt McKinley

Back from the Kenai Peninsula, we spent our evening in Anchorage eating more of the delicious halibut that Chad had caught and discussing how we wanted to spent the next few days in Denali National Park. As we checked the weather forecast, it looked like the next few days were going to be very nice, which means the mountain would be visible. Maybe we should check into taking a flightseeing tour above the Mt McKinley and be one of these lucky people who see the top of the mountain.

An exciting plane journey to come

That morning when we woke up, the weather seemed to hold its promise, at least in Anchorage: blue sky, no clouds. We called the aviation company that confirmed Mt McKinley was to be seen in its entirety today. We immediately booked the flight for the afternoon out of Talkeetna. As we drove up the Parks road on the bikes, we had our first glimpse of the mountain and our first collective jaw drop from inside our helmets. 20,320 feet (6.096 meters) of snow capped mountain was overlooking the road we were driving. The mountain, totally visible, was an incredible sight that apparently one is only lucky to spot only about 20% of the year.

We finally arrived at the local airport, boiling with impatience to take our flight and took a closer look at this beautiful mountain. As we waited for our flight, we were asked if we would consider taking another flight than the one we booked on due to scheduling conflict. If we wanted, we could be upgraded to a flight that would take us all the way to the summit, if we did not mind wearing oxygen masks above 15,000 feet since the cabin was not pressurized. Of course, we did not mind: we were ready for the McKinley Climber Summit Tour! We boarded in a small plane with 8 other lucky passengers. The pilot greeted us warmly with this sentence: “Today, the conditions are perfect, which is quite unusual”.

21,000 feet high on a perfect clear day

We took off and quickly rose to the sky. As we flew over the beautiful valley, the Alaskan range was getting visible and growing bigger and bigger. To both ascent and descent the mountain, we would follow glaciers. As we came closer, our sunglasses proved to be very useful with the sun reflecting on the snow. We first made a little detour to Mt Hunter and Mt Foraker, a good 17,000 feet high tease for what was going to be the main course of the flight. We could observe on the ground pretty unique glacier formations, crevasses, ridges as well as the base camps hikers use to climb Mt McKinley.

Finally, we were getting up to the summit. We all put on our oxygen masks, anxious to come closer to the highest mountain in North America. None of us were disappointed by the show: both the north and south peeks were fully visible, with a beautiful cloudless blue sky as the background. Today, the mountain was in a good mood, which is really rare in late August. We circled around the peek, listening to the stories of the many people who tried to conquer it and also how many lives it had taken.

As we started our descent, the pilot pointed out the Don Shelton Amphitheater where planes usually land. There were two on the ground, which gave us a perspective of how gigantic the mountain actually was. Further down, as we followed the Ruth glacier, we observed how the glacier turned into moraine as well as some of its unique features, like cristal blue ponds.

Through the whole flight, our hearts were pounding with excitment and our eyes filled with the magic of the mountain. As we landed back in Talkeetna, we had a hard time internalizing what we just saw, the majesty of this famous mountain and how lucky we were with the weather conditions. We felt some effects of the high altitude and the fast ascent but nothing that would spoil the experience we just lived. We felt we had been welcomed by the mountain, which had revealed itself entirely and let us experience how stunning it could be.