Misty Fjords Seaplane Tour
Description
Island Wings Air Service is owned and operated by Alaska veteran pilot Michelle Masden, who started flying in 1977 and began her business in Ketchikan in 1993. Island Wings takes the time and makes the effort to help you realize your Alaskan dreams. Share our love of flying through our vast Alaskan wilderness. Experience the freedom of flight over the wild grandeur of the mountains, the islands and the endless sea. Our focus is the quality of your experience. From the handling of your reservation, to the equipment we operate, to the places we visit; we don't compromise and neither should you. The total time for this tour is 2.5 hours including: the two hour flightseeing tour and fifteen minutes for the pick-up and fifteen minutes for the drop-off. This tour takes you on a flight from Ketchikan to the Misty Fjords National Monument with a landing on a freshwater lake or a saltwater fjord with approximately a thirty minute stopover.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Alaska's Inside Passage or Southeast Alaska is home to some of the most breathtaking scenery on earth. One of its jewels is the majestic Misty Fjords National Monument. Completely road-less and consisting of 2.3 million acres, an area larger than Yellowstone, makes a seaplane tour the only way to comfortably experience the many different levels within the deep, narrow fjords. More dramatic than the Grand Canyon, the fjords are steep walled inlets of the sea. Created by glacial gouging long ago, snow capped, sheer granite cliffs rise dramatically 3,500 out of the sea, ribbonned with waterfalls plummeting sensationally thousands of feet. Nestled within the steep walled canyons, lie pristine bowl-shaped alpine lakes suspended at many different elevations above sea level. Fed by more than 150 inches of misty rain annually, the lush rain forest, made of giant stands of spruce, hemlock and cedar, cling to the rugged rising terrain. Wildlife abounds in the area, with mountain goats and harbor seals being the most frequently sighted animals. Our most popular tour lasts 2 hours and takes you across Revilliagegedo Island over to the Alaskan mainland where the fjords are located, and into the heart of the monument. Headsets with voice communication are provided to passengers so you can chat in flight and ask questions as we fly. For the highlight of the tour, we will land on an alpine lake or on a calm bay at sea level and let passengers get off of the floatplane for a quiet excursion. Relax, stretch your legs and take some photos as you drink in the silence of the vast wilderness. Flying within the Misty Fjords is truly an emotional experience you’ll never forget!!
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
Pick-up location is the Liquid Sunshine Gauge located outside the Ketchikan Visitors Bureau building on Cruise Ship Berth 2.
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- Please wear layered clothing and comfortable walking shoes.
- All passengers MUST provide us a contact phone number when booking or call us to confirm a tour time.
- Passengers travelling via cruise ship MUST provide their cruise ship name to us so that appropriate arrangements can be made.
Reviews(248)
We took a floatplane out of Ketchikan, Alaska, today to see the fjords and wilderness of Tongass National Forest and Misty Fjords National Monument. It was a fun way to experience a part of Alaska that’s hard to reach any other way with no roads and few boats because so remote. The scenery was incredible—steep cliffs, quiet waterways, and forests that seemed to go on forever. I’ve been fortunate to see the fjords in Norway, and these were every bit as impressive. We learned that just the Misty Fjords National Monument covers about 2.3 million acres—roughly 3,600 square miles of protected wilderness. Seeing even a small portion of it from a floatplane made the scale of the place hard to comprehend.
We had the most amazing trip and cannot recommend this company highly enough. Adam was knowledgeable and we felt safe in his experienced hands. The scenery was breathtaking and landing on the lake to spend sometime taking in the utter beauty was a chance in a lifetime. Today we made memories never to forget. Book you will not be disappointed.
Great day. Adam, our pilot was courteous, friendly and informative. Great experience. Highly recommend
Adam and Island Wings were great! Adam our pilot explained in detail the sites we were seeing. Landed on a lake and we were able to get out on shore and feel the wilderness. Thanks for filling my bucket list!
This is truly a bucket list experience that I would recommend to everyone! We happened to be in Ketchikan on a cruise on a gorgeous sunny day and were able to book this on the pier. Michelle is a fabulous pilot and guide. It was an experience I will never forget! It was definitely the highlight of my two weeks in Alaska!
Our floatplane tour with Island Wings Air was the highlight of our Alaska vacation. Michelle, the owner and pilot, has more than 40 years of flying experience, and it was obvious from the moment we took off. Her flying skills were evident as she expertly navigated through the breathtaking fjords and mountain valleys surrounding Ketchikan. Watching her land the floatplane on a remote alpine lake was nothing short of amazing. The scenery was stunning. Towering mountains, waterfalls, snow-covered peaks, and pristine wilderness that you simply can’t experience any other way. Being able to step out onto the shore of a secluded mountain lake felt like something out of a postcard. What made the tour even better was Michelle herself. She was warm, engaging, and very knowledgeable. She shared interesting information throughout the flight and was wonderful with our children, making them feel comfortable, included, and excited about the adventure. This wasn’t just a sightseeing tour. It created some of our favorite memories from Alaska. If you’re visiting Ketchikan and can only choose one excursion, make it Island Wings. We would recommend Michelle and her team without hesitation and would do it again in a heartbeat.
This was a memorable trip. Highly recommend, even if you're afraid of small planes like me. You'll see extraordinary sights. Michele, our pilot, was knowledgeable and made the tour enjoyable.
This is a once in a lifetime experience and worth every penny! It exceeded our expectations. Thank you, Michelle and crew!
Wonderful experience. Adam our pilot was really nice, gave great commentary through out our flight via noise cancelling headphones. Landed at a beautiful lake in the middle of Misty fjords National monument park to take some beautiful photos and chat with the other passengers. Could not fault anything about the very enjoyable experience 🥰
This was my 4th time flying with Michelle of Island Wings. I can not say enough good things about the experiences I've had flying with her! Today was cloudy and because of safety reasons, we were given the option of canceling and getting a refund or flying to Prince of Wales Island instead . Of course I chose to fly anyway and I was not disappointed at all. Michelle is such a wonderful and professional pilot but a really good person as well! We ended up seeing a whale, stellar sea lions, dolphins and an eagle. We landed on Salmon Lake that had a forest service cabin that we could check out and Michelle told stories of her many times camping there. I was with my special needs son and Michelle was so kind and helpful getting him in and out of the plane!! Just another magical day with Island Wings.
