The rotor wash flattens the grass, the headset crackles, and the ground drops away until a river of blue-white ice slides into view beneath your feet. In Alaska the helicopter is a working part of the landscape, used to reach glaciers, ridgelines and wild valleys that roads never touch. The tours gather around Anchorage and Juneau, and they suit anyone who wants to see the state’s mountains and ice from above, or to stand on a glacier.
What helicopter tours are there in Alaska?
Helicopter tours in Alaska come in two main kinds: flightseeing loops over mountains, ice and coastline, and flights that set you down on a glacier. Alaska has about six times as many pilots per capita as the rest of the United States, and that culture of flying shows in how naturally an aircraft is treated as ordinary transport here.
Floatplanes and fixed-wing aircraft share the sky, and the choice shapes the day: a helicopter can hover and turn, a floatplane lands on water, and a fixed-wing plane covers ground. Knowing which one you are boarding tells you what kind of day to expect.
Glacier landings from Juneau
In Juneau, visitors can take a small plane or a helicopter to land on a glacier for hiking or dog-sledding. That sentence holds the whole appeal: you leave the town behind, cross the ice field from above, and then step out onto a surface that people only see in photographs. Dog-sledding on a glacier turns the ice into a working landscape, with teams that pull you across a white expanse.
Juneau’s glaciers and the forest around them make a strong contrast of white, blue and dark green, and the helicopter lets you take it in at a slow pace. The landing is the part to plan around. It is a different experience from a flightseeing loop, since you spend time on the ice itself.
Flightseeing from Anchorage
Flightseeing tours depart from Anchorage year-round, and personalized tours or charters are offered by floatplane, fixed wing and helicopter. The city sits within reach of some of the state’s biggest scenery. Denali, North America’s tallest peak at 20,310 feet, lies to the northwest of Anchorage. Kenai Fjords National Park is due south, on the Kenai Peninsula, and the Chugach Range stretches east from the city toward Prince William Sound and Valdez.
From Anchorage, personalized flightseeing tours and charters are offered by floatplane, fixed wing and helicopter. The word personalized matters too. These are tours and charters shaped around what you want to see, not only a fixed loop.
Day trips and overnight adventures
From Anchorage, flightseeing day trips and overnight adventures include bear viewing, fly-in fishing, hiking and glacier landings. A flight can be the way into a day on a remote river or the start of a night away from town. Bear viewing is a chance, not a promise, and the sight of a bear from a safe distance is part of why people book these trips in the first place.
Fly-in fishing and hiking add another reason to board an aircraft: the destination is the point and the flight is how you reach it. Glacier landings appear here as well, so the same Anchorage trip can end on the ice, much like the Juneau version.
Heli-skiing in Juneau’s winter
Winter brings another use for the helicopter. In Juneau, the cold months offer downhill skiing, heli-skiing, cross-country skiing and snowboarding. Heli-skiing means the aircraft carries skiers up to slopes that lifts do not reach, and it belongs on the list because it shows how far the helicopter reaches into Alaskan life beyond summer sightseeing.
It is a different trip from a glacier landing, and it suits people who already ski. For everyone else, the winter option that matters most is that flightseeing leaves Anchorage year-round, so the season you travel in does not close the sky.
Where do they leave from?
Each base has its own character, and knowing it helps you picture the morning.
Anchorage: Merrill Field, Lake Hood and Girdwood
Flights from Anchorage depart from Merrill Field and Lake Hood, the world’s busiest floatplane base, or from nearby Girdwood. Lake Hood is a place worth a look in itself: small seaplanes line the water, and the sight of so many aircraft tied up in one place explains the pilot statistic better than any number could.
Girdwood gives the trip a different start. Leaving from there rather than the city puts the departure closer to the mountains. Which base your flight uses depends on the operator and the kind of trip, so the name of the field is one of the first details to learn once you have picked a tour.
Anchorage also has plenty to enjoy on the ground. Anchorage is a good place to see Alaska animals, including moose that munch through the city. That makes a flight day easy to pair with an unhurried look around town.
Juneau: flights to the ice
Juneau is where the glacier-landing option is named most directly. Visitors there can take a small plane or helicopter onto a glacier for hiking or dog-sledding. The town is small, and its historic district is walkable, with several sights to see, so the flight can be one part of a day that also includes a stroll past the old streets and the galleries.
Juneau also has the glacier you can see without leaving the ground. Mendenhall Glacier is 13 miles from downtown and near the airport, and visitors can drive directly to it. Seeing it from the road and the visitor center first gives you a picture of the ice that a flight will then show from another angle.
A ground-level view at Mendenhall
The United States Forest Service operates the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, which looks out on a lake-terminating, calving glacier. Photo Point Trail and Steep Creek Trail are described as easy and accessible, and elevated boardwalks above Steep Creek offer salmon and bear viewing opportunities. Access to the outside area and trails is free.
For a longer walk, the East Glacier Loop climbs gradually to an overlook, and the Nugget Falls Trail leads to a waterfall closer to the glacier’s face. The West Glacier Trail reaches the glacier itself, with a chance to see ice caves beneath it, and it lies across the lake from the visitor center. A walk like this puts scale into your head before you ever board an aircraft.
Matanuska Glacier and Seward, by road
Not every glacier day needs a rotor. Matanuska Glacier lies near the Glenn Highway, about 100 miles northeast of Anchorage in Glacier View, and it is the largest glacier accessible by car in the United States. It is a valley glacier, long and wide, and it moves at a pace you cannot see, about a foot a day.
Where do they leave from? Glacier and wildlife cruises there let you hear ice crash into the water. These are the quieter, ground-and-water companions to a day in the air.
What should you know before you book?
Before booking, decide whether you want an air-only tour or a glacier landing, and check which departure point your operator uses.
Choosing the aircraft and the kind of trip
From Anchorage, personalized flightseeing tours and charters run by floatplane, fixed wing and helicopter. The three feel different. A helicopter suits a trip that is built around a landing or a slow look at a single place, while a floatplane brings the pleasure of touching down on water.
The second choice is between viewing and doing. Glacier landings, in both Juneau and Anchorage, add hiking or dog-sledding to the flight. A flightseeing loop keeps you in the air. Day trips and overnight adventures from Anchorage stretch the idea further, with bear viewing, fly-in fishing and hiking on the list.
What you may see
Wildlife is a chance, never a guarantee. In Juneau, visitors are likely to see bears, bald eagles or humpback whales, especially from April through November, and wildlife viewing tours there can get visitors close to black bears, Dall’s porpoises, sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, mountain goats and Sitka blacktail deer. These species are reported for Juneau wildlife-viewing tours, not for helicopter flights.
From a helicopter, scenery is the more reliable reward. Denali’s great bulk, the fjords of Kenai Fjords National Park and the long Chugach Range are the kinds of places an Anchorage flight may look toward. What you actually cross depends on the route you and the operator choose.
Building a day around the flight
What surrounds the flight can help shape the rest of the day. The Events Calendar can help if you want something spontaneous. A boat charter for salmon is another way to spend time on the water.
In Anchorage, the day can end with the animals that wander the city. At the Mendenhall visitor center, a Fireside Lecture series runs on Friday evenings from January through March, which suits a winter visit more than a summer one. Each of these pairs well with the air tours.
Winter and the shoulder of the year
Because flightseeing tours depart from Anchorage year-round, the sky is not shut in the cold months. Winter in Juneau adds heli-skiing, and Seward is described in a winter visitation guide as one of the best times to visit. Seward’s public-use cabins and wilderness lodging on the Kenai Peninsula give a quiet base for those who want to stay out longer.
Winter and the shoulder months suit people who prefer a slower pace.
Good to know before you go
Seeing Mendenhall Glacier from the ground costs nothing, since access to the outside area and trails at the visitor center is free, and that is a good way to get a feel for the ice before or after a flight. At Matanuska Glacier, the private land owner requires $100 tours for first-time visitors, and a private entity charges a toll on the only bridge from Alaska Route 1 to the state recreation site. Seward Guided Hikes offers hiking in the wilderness for those who want a ground-based day.
Sources
- Travel Juneau, things to do (https://www.traveljuneau.com/things-to-do/), checked October 11, 2026
- Visit Anchorage, flightseeing (https://www.anchorage.net/things-to-do/flightseeing/), checked October 11, 2026
- Wikipedia, Mendenhall Glacier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendenhall_Glacier), checked October 11, 2026
- Wikipedia, Matanuska Glacier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matanuska_Glacier), checked October 11, 2026
- Visit Seward, things to do (https://www.seward.com/things-to-do), checked October 11, 2026