Activities

This flight is the shorter of two Mount Aspiring flights. After crossing Lake Wanaka, we fly up a long, remote mountain valley named Minaret Burn by the early NZ Scottish settlers, to make a high altitude landing near Mount Aspiring. This landing site allows great views of Mount Aspiring, ‘The Matterhorn of the South’, some of it’s many glaciers and the Southern Alps. After a short walk around, we then fly on, remaining east of the Main Divide, to see close up, great blue ice hanging glaciers, ice and water falls, sheer rock faces, mountain tarns, and native beech forest before returning via the wide, braided Matukituki River valley, Treble Cone Ski field, Glendhu Bay and Wanaka Township, to the airport.

This longer flight initially flies the same route as the Mount Aspiring Magic flight to the high mountain landing spot near Mount Aspiring. After this remote alpine landing and walk around, we then cross the Main Divide to the West Coast side of Mount Aspiring to explore much more of this impressive mountain and the best of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. We see numerous glaciers, some short, steep hanging ones and others up to 10 kilometers long. We fly down the Bonar Glacier to see cascading cliffs of compressed blue ice over 50 years old, deep crevasses, mountaineers huts perched on rocky ledges, ice and water falls, sheer rock faces, mountain tarns, and so much more magnificent mountain grandeur that it will be hard to take it all in. This flight will not fail to impress and is our best alpine scenic flight. We returning home via the braided Matukituki River valley, over Lake Wanaka to Wanaka Airport.

From Wanaka Airport we cross Lake Wanaka and fly up along a remote mountain valley named Minaret Burn by the early NZ Scottish settlers, to make a high altitude landing near Mt Aspiring. This landing site allows great views of Mount Aspiring, “The Southern Matterhorn”, some of it’s many glaciers and the Southern Alps. After this remote alpine landing and walk around, we then cross the Main Divide to the West Coast side of Mount Aspiring to explore much more of this impressive mountain and the best of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. We see numerous glaciers, some short steep hanging ones and others up to 10 kilometres long. We fly down the Bonar Glacier to see cascading cliffs of compressed blue ice over 50 years old, deep crevasses, mountaineers huts perched on rocky ledges, ice and water falls, sheer rock faces, mountain tarns and so much more magnificent mountain grandeur that it will be hard to take it all in. Upon leaving the Mt. Aspiring area, we fly over the Shotover Saddle into the headwaters of the famous Shotover River and then we head to the remote alpine lake of Lochnagar, hidden in the Southern Alps far from civilization, where we land and shut down for your picnic lunch. We leave you to enjoy a very special wilderness experience of gourmet picnic and solitude. The return flight is via Treble Cone Ski field, over the braided Matukituki River and Lake Wanaka back to Wanaka Airport.