Flying High Over Wrangell St Elias

Please note, this post is part of a series. Click here to read it from the beginning.

From the choice of activities we had at Wrangell St Elias National Park, our decisions were vey much weather dependent. If it had ended up raining for three days, I probably would have gone rafting. Well, you might as well if you’re going to get wet anyway. On our first day there, a layer of grey cloud covered the sky. My hope of taking one of the flightseeing excursions with Wrangell Mountain Air looked like it was going down the drain. Then, at the end of a really long and tiring day of activities, the sun came out just in time to catch the last flight. And boy, am I glad I made that decision.

Flying over the national park in a small, six-seater plane really helps you to understand the scale of it and how all the different parts fit together. Distances and sizes in the park are so huge, at some points you feel you are going to fly right into a mountain when in fact you are still over a kilometre away. The views of the mountains and glaciers from above are incredible. Our pilot, Bill, chatted to us and told us all about the area as we clicked away with our cameras. Bill was just as good as our guides on the ground, and helped us gain a new perspective of the park and life there.