Alaska: New flight tours will buzz Denali, N. America’s highest peak

Why climb to the top of Denali when you can go by plane? Though the climbing season on North America’s highest peak officially began this month, visitors will have another way to get to the top of the 20,237-foot summit (a.k.a. Mount McKinley) this season.

Northern Alaska Tour Co. based in Fairbanks will expand its “flightseeing” services starting May 14 to include a ride aboard a multi-engine airplane to the top of the mountain.

You won’t be able to stand on the peak, but you will be able to snap incredible photographs from your window seat and enjoy the surrounding mountaintops and ridges of vast Denali National Park and Preserve.

The company will offer six departures each day from Healy, a small town north of the national park’s entrance, to a head-spinning 21,000 feet in elevation for a fly-by of the peak.

Passengers who want to go on the flight must use oxygen during part of the 90-minute journey. (Before boarding, a pliot runs through a briefing about how and when to use the oxygen mask.)

Tours begin next week and run until Sept. 21. Tickets costs $339 per person.

But back to the climbers. They’ll spend at least 17 days trying to get to the top by foot using crampons, ropes and ice axes. In 2012, of the 1,223 climbers headed for the summit, only 41% made it.

So far this year, 926 people are registered to climb and 56 are on the mountain as of Monday, the park’s website says.

Info: Northern Alaska Tour Co., (800) 474-1986