Guest Blog: Flightseeing in Kluane National Park
In honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary on July 1, we’re bringing you 150 Travelzoo Tips -- one per day until July 1 -- to help you explore and enjoy this great land. For Tip 20, Leigh McAdams, creator of HikeBikeTravel, shares her tip for a uniquely Canadian experience. You can follow Leigh on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Kluane National Park is one of three national parks in the Yukon -- and it's by far the most accessible, as it’s only a few hours’ drive from Whitehorse. The park is home to a raw and unspoiled landscape featuring seventeen of Canada’s highest twenty peaks -- including the highest of them all, Mt. Logan, at 5,959 metres. It’s also where you’ll find some of the world’s largest and most impressive glaciers.
In summer there are loads of hiking opportunities in the park, but most hikes, no matter how impressive the scenery, don’t showcase the size and breadth of the park. Nor do dogsledding, mountaineering (though they comes the closest) or rafting trips.
A flightseeing trip -- which can be done at any time of the year, weather permitting -- affords the opportunity to get a feel for the vastness of the world’s largest non-polar ice cap (when combined with Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park). Whether it be a quick 30-minute flight or a two-hour Mt. Logan tour, you will undoubtedly be awed by the scene unfolding before you. At times it will feel like you can reach out and touch the mountains.
Planes come equipped with headphones so you can have a two-way chat with the pilot while enjoying the awesome view out the window. Most will give you a running commentary with the names of the major peaks and glaciers and with luck, a few stories as well.
On a winter trip, expect to see only mountains, snow and glaciers -- with perhaps a glint of the Pacific Ocean if you do the longer trip. But if you visit in summer, you’re far more likely to be see wild animals including Dall sheep, moose and grizzly bears.
No matter when you go, it will be breathtaking.