We did a "McKinley Tour" today on the flight down to Anchorage. Lady asked as she got on and we had a good tail wind so Captain decided we could do one, center was accomodating and gave us the standard clearance... (FL 230 and direct to McKinley). It was my leg this time, this was the first time I've been able to get close to it. It's amazing how much steeper and bigger it gets as you get closer. The entire time we're flying towards it (at 23,000 ft!) it looked like we wouldn't clear the top if we flew directly overhead (we were slightly above it once we got close). We did two turns around it, one to the right and one to the left, so passengers on each side could get a good view and take pictures.
One side of the mountain is around 18,000 ft of almost sheer rock wall. Even the calmer side is amazingly steep and it's hard to imagine people climbing all the way up. On the steeper side there are what are called "hanging glaciers" which are basically massive chunks of ice that look glued to almost sheer drops... periodically large portions of them fall off and down the mountain.
I blocked off the turns so I could use closer to 30 degrees of bank at times to give them good shots looking down. Captain tried to take some pictures with my disposable camera, hopefully some turned out and I can show them off when I fill it up and get it developed.
It's an impressive sight to see from 60+ miles away, but it's just amazing from right there. Makes the 1900 just feel incredibly insignificant and puny.
I believe a few of the passengers (including the one that asked if we could get close) were tourists and hadn't been on such a "small" plane before and bought tickets on us hoping that the lower altitude would give a better view of the mountain. Might just have convinced them that small planes aren't so bad after all...
