Denali Flight Seeing

[sury]

These are the shots from flight seeing trip to Denali (the big one in Atabaskan language) aka Mt. McKineley. The plane's cabin
is not pressurized and the plane climbs to 22000 feet and you require oxygen masks. I suffered from altitude sickness and for
most part faded away and my wife took the shots. Mostly with Tamron 200-500.

Sury

Denali:

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsu ... .jpg[/img]
DSC29691-156 by BigSury, on Flickr[/url]

The Summit:

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsu ... .jpg[/img]
DSC29677-142 by BigSury, on Flickr[/url]

Glacier Fields

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsu ... .jpg[/img]
DSC29709-174 by BigSury, on Flickr[/url]

[John David Cubit]

Beautiful shots, Sury. Thanks for sharing--this is on my bucket list. But I start getting altitude sickness after a day above 8,000 feet. I don't know how long I'd last at 22,000 feet, so thanks for the warning

[Dr. Harout]

WOOOOW

[Anne_LilyofTheValley]

Amazing! So beautiful!

[Andy B]

Beautiful shots indeed. The flightseeing tour of Denali that my wife and I took back in 2007 did not require oxygen masks, but I'm not sure to what altitude our twin-engine, eight-passenger Piper Navajo climbed. I must admit that taking off up into the mountains almost made me toss my cookies, but all was well once I started snapping photos of those majestic snow-covered mountains. The weather around Mt. McKinley was overcast that day, and I was just learning how to use my new A700, so my pics are not as impressive as yours.

As far as bucket lists go, this was the most expensive excursion we took during our two-week Alaska cruise tour, but certainly well worth it. It was the highlight of our trip, along with two marvelous whale-watching quests in Resurrection Bay (Kenai Fjords National Park) and Stephens Passage near Juneau. I would go back there in a heartbeat!

[sury]

Thank you all. Much appreciated.

Actually there are two kinds of tours. One is called McKinley flight seeing and the
other one is McKinley Summit flight seeing tour. It is the latter that takes you to the top of McKinley summit. Others
just circumnavigate around the peak. Also, it is lot cheaper (about 20%-30%) to take the flights from Talkeetna (about 50 miles south of
Denali) rather than from the Denali park area (Healy, I believe). The plane we were in was a 10 seater. I did not know anything about the
oxygen till we were buckled up in the plane. Though I was almost faint for about 20 minutes of the high altitude, I am glad I did not know
about it. My family had a fantastic time which they would have missed otherwise. Things one does for the family.

Sury

From the back of Alaska Lodge at Talkeetna. There is a restaurant and a viewing deck. It was a fantastic spot to grab a lunch after the ride
and see Mt. McKinley. It is one of the 10 spots to Denali peak from outside the Denali National Park. I wish our plane was like the one here with
wings on top for unobstructed view below.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigsu ... .jpg[/img]
DSC29801-49 by BigSury, on Flickr[/url]

[Birma]

Gosh Sury your Alaskan pictures continue to crank up the wow factor! Those mountain shots are awesome - compliments to your wife . Great detail and colour (of course it's all in the camera set up and PP really .) That first one is now my favourite picture from your Alasakn trip - great stuff. (I can't imagine what's coming next ...)

[Greg Beetham]

Top stuff Sury, that’s one inhospitable looking place, not a single extreme skier in sight ha ha and I doubt there ever will be either. Shame about the altitude sickness, it’s a wonder that un-pressurised planes taking passengers to twenty-two thousand feet are actually legal as things can go wrong very easily. There was a case here where a twin engine pressurised flight carrying shift workers to a remote mine site had a problem with the pressure and the pilots didn’t realize that it wasn’t working, everyone began nodding off once the plane passed through fifteen thousand climbing to twenty five. The control tower couldn’t raise them but the plane was still on radar so they scrambled a couple of FA18’s from Tindal (I think) to see if they could see what was going on. They reported that they could see in the windows but everyone appeared to be asleep…and never to re-awaken, the plane flew on on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and then crashed in North Qld. having flown right across Oz. I think they found that there was a problem with that model plane, the system could be in non pressure mode and the plane could climb through the point where you need to have it on but the system didn’t issue any warning signals or sound an alarm. (If I remember correctly)
Anyway enough morbid stuff, I’m impressed with the shots particularly the glacier, that is some big glacier.
Greg

[sury]

Greg,
Thank you. Luckily, (though wouldn't know ) all other 7 passengers in the plane were awake.
The flight was smooth and they seem to do these trips very routinely weather permitting. There seem
to be more planes than cars in Alaska. After all, there the total length of road is only 3000 miles.
My wife, who would rather be watching than taking photos felt "sorry" for my condition and stepped
up to take photos that I should have taken. I love her so much!!!

Heli skiing is very popular in Alaska and I would not recommend skiing down a glacier, having stepped
on one. That is as hard as concrete. Two Japanese mountain climbers died on McKinley couple of
weeks earlier. We did see couple of climbers at lower altitude but I was not fast enough capture them.

Sury

[mvanrheenen]

Hi sury,

I agree with the previous comments, very stunning scenery. Your images do them justice. I would personally correct the extreme angle of the horizon of the 2nd image though.

Mark

[bakubo]

Oh boy! That looks like a fun thing to do and you got some very nice photos!

[Juanito200]

What a great expedition Sury.. I'm quite envious. At least I have your wonderful photos to admire! Well done!

[jbtaylor]

Glacier fields, yes!

[aster]

Hi Sury, : )

The first one and the Glacier field took my breath away. The beauty of these summits are as much in effect as the level of oxygen if you ask me. : )

Great scale.

Thanks for sharing,

Yildiz