Leighan, our pilot, was awesome. She's from Fairbanks and has a lot of knowledge about the area and wildlife. The views were fantastic. I've posted some pictures but they don't do justice to the real views. We've gone on multiple trips in the summer with Talkeetna Air, including glacier landings which were equally awesome but our destination to an Iditarod Checkpoint during the race was something we'll never forget. Talkeetna Air didn't an outstanding job from the 1st time we came to south central Alaska and we've loved every trip.
We booked the tour in advance so we showed up 30 minutes early as requested and we were quickly checked in. You have to be weighed with everything you're taking with you but no one sees the weight except the person behind the counter. Once everyone was ready we were taken out to an Otter plane and could pick out the seats we wanted. I asked if I could sit in the copilot's seat (because we'd done this before) and got an awesome view! It was about an hour to the Rainy Pass checkpoint but Leighan told us all kinds of interesting facts about the Alaskan range, the various mountains, rivers and wildlife. She found the Iditarod trail and from about 2000' feet followed it and pointed out teams as we went by. It was really cool. It got better after we landed in Rainy Pass. If you're interested in seeing how the Iditarod really works this is absolutely the best thing you can do outside of volunteering and being part of the race yourself. Leighan was helpful in where to go and had us check in at 12:30 to make sure everyone was OK. Seeing the teams come into the Rainy Pass, check in, take care of their dogs, talk to the vets and answer our questions was unbelievably nice. The only thing that could have made the excursion better is if we could have stayed longer. I highly recommend this trip (and the glacier landing tours)!