Pictures of the Alaska Mountain Range from Airplane

In April 2007, my wife Laura and I took a trip to visit a couple friends in Alaska. One of our friends accompanied us as we chartered a small airplane and pilot to fly us over the Alaska mountain range to get extreme close-up views of the mountains. We even landed on a huge icefield in the middle of the mountains and had an opportunity to get out of the plane and look around. I had taken a similar trip several years before, but it is a spectacular sight no matter how many times you've seen it. I am making plans to climb Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) in May/June of 2009.

Please enjoy the photos!

The above picture is Mt. Foraker. It is over 17,000 feet tall!

The picture above shows the basecamp for climbers attempting to climb Denali. If you look closely, you can see tiny little dots. Those are the tents of the climbers. This is a HUGE place!

The above picture is looking at the summit of Denali from the southwest.

The above picture shows the incredible north face of Denali -- called Wickersham Wall. It is a sheer face of rock and ice that rises nearly 14,000 feet (nearly 3 miles!) above the surrounding mountains to the top of the 20,300 foot summit of Denali.

The picture above shows an ice fall, which is like a waterfall of ice. It is very difficult to climb through, so climbers usually find a way around it.

The picture above shows a wall of rock over a mile high. Though you can't see it in the picture, there is another one to our right side. We're surrounded by mile-high rock on both sides!

This is our pilot, Laura, and Laura's friend Shannon in the Sheldon Amphitheater -- a HUGE ice field a couple miles high in the mountains. The peak behind them is Denali.