Float Plane to Misty Fjords Alaska

Today we took our annual end-of-the-season excursion. In the past, we've taken helicopters to glaciers and chartered a boat to Tracy's Arm. This time we did something that's been on my bucket list for a long time. We took a float plane to Misty Fjords (to be honest, riding in a float plane was on my bucket list, Misty Fjords was not, but it should have been).

9/24 Update: If pics aren't good enough, the video is at the end of this post.

We flew with Taquan Air. Our group was split in two planes since there were 9 of us and one plane couldn't quite fit all of us. The flight took about 40 minutes from Ketchikan, around a few cool sights, and then landing in a calm inlet. Here's our route in case you're curious. (I was, which is why I put that thing together.)

I sat up front as the co-pilot for the first half.

This was my view.

The first half (up until that big open channel) is mainly a bunch of lakes and muskeg.

Had it just been views like this, I would have felt a little ripped off. The trip to Skagway is more interesting than this with its glaciers and whale sightings. But once we crossed that big channel, everything changed.

Mountain lakes...

Granite cliffs...

Lots of waterfalls...

And then Mike (our pilot) banked hard like we were riding a roller coaster - the only time I felt a little nervous on the flight. But to be fair, he wanted to give a view of the falls to both sides of the plane.

After flightseeing through this area, we flew down the middle of the fjords and around to a calm inlet, where we landed and were able to get out on the pontoon for some fresh air and to appreciate the scenery in slow motion (and silence).

The girls' plane was following ours and landed about 2 minutes after us. They hung out on the far end of the inlet, away from us. We found out later that Morgan jumped in. She's cray cray. But the pic and video is cool. Check out the pic here: [Morgan's Instagram].

We hung out on the water for about 10 minutes and then we had to fly back in. Once we cleared the channel it got really cloudy and rainy so we couldn't see much. But when we landed, it was all smiles all around. :)

Bucket list. Check!