Alaska.com: Alaska's Travel Website

When I was a child growing up in Michigan, my father would fly the family back and forth to Indiana to visit my grandparents. It seemed normal. I'm sure I was the only kid in my class for whom the phrase "road trip" didn't actually include a road.

Then one day, while he was training another pilot, the plane crashed. My dad was OK, but the plane wasn't.

That was the end of my plane-as-regular-transportation life. Until I moved to Alaska.

I hadn't been in a small single-engine plane for 20 years. But if you aren't willing to get in a plane, you cut yourself off from much of what makes Alaska, well, Alaska.

Planes and Alaska go together like snow and winter or salmon and summer. You can't have one without the other. Recent statistics say there are nearly 11,000 pilots in Alaska. (Don't forget, Alaska has about 640,000 residents.) There are about 650 public and private airports.

For visitors, flightseeing and air taxis make the Great Land all the more great. "You're able to see vast amounts of sights in a short amount of time," said Todd Rust, owner of Rust's Flying Service and K2 Aviation. "Alaska is mostly roadless. One of the only ways to see some of the most scenic destinations is from the air."

Every community that has an airport generally has a flightseeing operation, but no matter where you travel in Southcentral Alaska, most planes head to Mount McKinley.

Whether leaving from Talkeetna, Anchorage or elsewhere, the 20,320-foot peak attracts plenty of attention.

"For a lot of people, they have got to see Denali," said John Miller, owner of Take Flight Alaska, based at Merrill Field in Anchorage. "On a clear day, you can see Denali from the time we lift off at Merrill Field. You see a lot more of it the closer you get.

"It is very impressive."

While many flightseeing operators take visitors to Mount McKinley, each trip is a little different.

For example, Rust's two companies have completely different itineraries. K2 Aviation is based in Talkeetna. Rust's Flying Service is at Lake Hood floatplane base in Anchorage.

Most K2 flights can include a glacier landing, which is a highlight for many.

"The flight itself always impresses people with the beauty," said Rust, the son of the company founder. "We fly through the Great Gorge, over Sheldon Amphitheater and Kahiltna Glacier. It always mesmerizes.

"Then when you land on the glacier and people step out on the snow, now it's a touching and feeling experience. The snow is typically very firm. You can walk just about anywhere. And the snowball making is optimum."

K2 offers four basic flights: the McKinley Experience ($145), the McKinley Flyer ($185), the Denali Grand ($205) and the McKinley Climber/Summit tour ($235). The first three can include a glacier landing. Glacier landings tack an additional $60 on to the cost of the tour.

The McKinley Climber/Summit tour is in an oxygen-equipped plane that climbs to the top of McKinley, giving guests a view from the summit of North America's tallest mountain.

Other Talkeetna and Denali-area companies offer similar trips.

Denali Air has a private airstrip just outside the entrance to Denali National Park. The company's flights parallel the Alaska Range, with a goal of circling the mountain.

"A flight is so wonderful because you can see so many things that aren't visible from the road," said Beth Barrett, vice president of Denali Air, which has offered flightseeing trips since the 1970s. "There is nothing better than getting right next to the mountain. There you can see how big it is. You really get the impact of it."

If you're flying from Lake Hood in Anchorage, Rust's Flying Service offers a different experience. It starts with a floatplane takeoff from Lake Hood, the world's busiest seaplane base. After an hour flight north toward Mount McKinley, the plane lands on Chelatna Lake just outside Denali National Park. The trip is $269 per person.

"That landing tends to be the highlight," Rust said. "It's a very scenic location in the Alaska Range. People can get out, walk around and take it all in. It's very secluded, very remote."

Rust's also offers other flightseeing trips from Anchorage, including a half-hour flight of the Chugach Mountains and a trip to Knik Glacier, with an optional lake landing.

Rust's also specializes in fly-in fishing trips and bear-viewing trips. Bear trips are six to 10 hours and cost $459 to $599 per person. The trips take visitors across Cook Inlet to Lake Clark National Park, Lake Iliamna or Katmai National Park.

Flightseeing companies usually have trips that are popular with everyone, but if you're looking for a unique experience, Take Flight Alaska's Miller said to not be shy.

His company features flightseeing trips that include mountain biking, trekking or time at a cabin that belongs to one of the company's pilots. Custom trips are available.

"We can take people out to Prince William Sound or Kachemak Bay and have multiday adventures," Miller said. "Go out to Kachemak Bay and land on a sand bar, spend the day fishing. We can fly over areas for bear viewing, moose viewing, caribou viewing.

"We don't just take them out and say, 'There's a mountain, there's a lake, there's Prince William Sound.' We go down and land in some of those areas. It's not just an adventure, it's more of an excursion."

So, whether it's a trip to Mount McKinley, bear viewing or visiting just about anywhere else in the state, Alaska's fleet of aircraft waits to take visitors to an experience as unique as the Great Land itself.

Special sections editor Steve Edwards can be reached at sedwards@adn.com.