Denali
Denali is the highest mountain in North America, rising 6,190 metres above the Alaskan wilderness. It is famous for its extreme weather (winter temperatures can drop below -60 °C and winds can exceed 240 km per hour), its vertical height (the actual climb from the base to the summit is taller than the climb up Everest), and a long-running dispute over its name.
- Height6,190 mHighest peak in North America
- CountryUnited StatesIn Alaska
- NameDenali("The Great One" in Athabaskan)
- Old nameMount McKinleyUsed 1917 to 2015
- Coldest temp-83 °CWind chill recorded by automatic stations
- Climbers/yearapprox. 1,000About half reach the summit
Denali compared to other tall peaks
Denali is shorter than the Asian giants but is the third-tallest of the Seven Summits, after Everest and Aconcagua.
What is Denali?
Denali is a massive granite peak in the Alaska Range, the high mountain chain that runs across south-central Alaska. The mountain sits at the centre of Denali National Park and Preserve, a wilderness area larger than Belgium. The name Denali comes from the Athabaskan language of the indigenous Koyukon people and means "The Great One" or "The High One". European settlers later renamed it Mount McKinley after US President William McKinley in 1917, but the original name was officially restored by the US government in 2015.
Why the dispute over the name?
In 1896 a gold prospector heard that William McKinley had won the Republican Party's presidential nomination and decided on the spot to call the mountain after him. McKinley had no connection to Alaska and never even saw the mountain, but the name stuck and was officially adopted by the US government in 1917 (the year after he was assassinated). Alaskans called it Denali. The state of Alaska officially recognised Denali in 1975 and asked the federal government to do the same. The federal government finally complied in 2015 under President Barack Obama. It is now Denali to nearly everyone.
Extreme weather
Denali has some of the worst weather of any mountain in the world. Sitting far north (just south of the Arctic Circle) means the summit experiences extreme cold even in summer. Automatic weather stations near the summit have recorded temperatures as low as -83 °C with wind chill, and wind speeds over 240 km per hour. The summer climbing season is just six weeks long, from late May to early July, and even then storms can pin climbers down for days.
The latitude also means the air at any given altitude is "thinner" than at the same altitude further south. The summit of Denali feels more like a 7,300-metre mountain in terms of oxygen than its actual 6,190 metres. This is why climbers often suffer worse altitude sickness on Denali than on higher mountains nearer the equator.
Climbing Denali
The first successful climb of Denali was in 1913, by a team led by Hudson Stuck. Today approx. 1,000 climbers attempt the mountain each summer, with around half reaching the summit. Most climb the West Buttress route, which takes around three weeks. Unlike Everest, Denali expeditions usually involve no porters or Sherpas: climbers carry all their own equipment and food in heavy backpacks, often dragging additional sleds.
Deeper dive: the Alaska Range, the high-latitude weather and the Athabaskan heritage
The Alaska Range was uplifted in the last 60 million years by the collision of the Pacific tectonic plate with the North American plate. The plates meet along the Denali Fault, a major active fault line that runs through the heart of the range. A major earthquake on the Denali Fault in 2002 (magnitude 7.9, the largest earthquake in the area in over 100 years) shifted the land sideways by up to 7 metres in places but caused little damage because the area is so sparsely populated. The fault is still active, and small earthquakes happen on or near it almost every day.
Denali's extreme weather is partly a result of its far-north location. At high latitudes, the atmosphere is generally thinner because the Earth's rotation flattens it slightly at the poles. So the air at 6,000 metres above Denali contains less oxygen than the air at 6,000 metres above an equatorial mountain. This effect, combined with the bitter cold, makes Denali physiologically harder than mountains a kilometre taller in Nepal. Many climbers have summited Everest but failed on Denali because of the cold and the altitude effects.
The Athabaskan peoples (whose language family includes the Koyukon, the Dena'ina, the Ahtna and others) have lived in central Alaska for at least 12,000 years. The name "Denali" comes from the Koyukon Athabaskan word "Deenaalee", meaning "the high one" or "the great one". Athabaskan peoples have a deep traditional knowledge of the mountain and its surrounding rivers, valleys and wildlife, and have hunted and fished in the region for hundreds of generations. The official restoration of the Denali name in 2015 was widely celebrated as a recognition of indigenous heritage.
The country is the United States. The mountain range is the Alaska Range; the wider mountain system also includes the Rocky Mountains further south.