Denali

Denali is a giant mountain in Alaska.

It is the tallest mountain in North America. Snow and ice cover it all year. Rivers of ice called glaciers slide down its sides. The mountain has two names: Denali and Mount McKinley.

Denali is the highest mountain in North America. In 2015, a team from the US Geological Survey (USGS) carried GPS equipment to the top and measured its height at 20,310 feet, about 6,190 meters. It is the crowning peak of the Alaska Range, a curve of mountains about 600 miles (970 kilometers) long.

What makes Denali amazing is how high it rises above the land around it. The National Park Service (NPS) explains that its base is only about 2,000 feet above sea level, so it towers about 3.5 miles above its base. Mount Everest is taller, but it starts on a high plateau, so Denali rises about a mile more from base to summit. Snow and ice cover more than three-quarters of the mountain.

The USGS, with NOAA's National Geodetic Survey, Dewberry, CompassData and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, made a precise GPS survey of the summit in June 2015, setting the official height at 20,310 ft (6,190 m), 10 ft lower than the 1950s figure; a 2013 airborne radar survey giving 20,237 ft had been questioned because ifsar cannot give precise point elevations on steep terrain. Snowpack depth and the reference surface for mean sea level had to be accounted for.

NPS describes the mountain as the crowning peak of the 600-mile Alaska Range, rising three and a half vertical miles from a base at about 2,000 ft, a mile more from base to summit than Everest, which starts on a plain at about 14,000 ft. Its north face, the Wickersham Wall, rises about 14,000 ft from the Peters Glacier, and permanent snow and ice cover over 75 percent of the mountain.

Big glaciers spread out from Denali like the arms of an octopus.

Below the ice, there are low bushes and tundra. Five big animals are famous here: moose, caribou, Dall sheep, wolves and grizzly bears.

Glaciers cover about one-sixth of Denali National Park, NPS says, flowing out from the mountains like the arms of an octopus. The longest, the Kahiltna Glacier, is 44 miles (about 71 kilometers) long. Even on the ice there is life: tiny algae grow in the snow and feed insects called springtails.

Scientists have counted 39 kinds of mammals in the park. Visitors especially hope to see the big five: moose browsing in the willows, herds of caribou crossing the tundra, Dall sheep high on the hillsides, wolves, and grizzly bears eating blueberries. Smaller animals include pikas, hoary marmots, arctic ground squirrels and snowshoe hares.

NPS records that glaciers cover about one million acres, one-sixth of the park; hundreds of unnamed and at least 40 named glaciers flow from as high as 19,000 ft down to about 800 ft. The Ruth, Kahiltna and Muldrow glaciers each exceed 30 miles, and the Kahiltna, at 44 miles, is the longest in the Alaska Range. Glacier surfaces support simple food chains of snow algae, some pigmented red as a sunscreen ('watermelon snow'), grazed by springtails and eaten by beetles; these organisms survive freezing by controlling where ice forms and using glycerol as antifreeze.

The park lists 39 mammal species, from shrews to moose over 1,200 lb. The 'big five' are moose, caribou, Dall sheep, wolves and grizzly bears; others include collared pikas, hoary marmots, red foxes, arctic ground squirrels, snowshoe hares, wolverines and black bears.

Alaska Native peoples named the mountain long ago.

The name Denali comes from a word meaning the tall one. In 1913, four climbers reached the top. Walter Harper, an Alaska Native, stepped on top first.

At least nine Alaska Native groups have their own names for the mountain, NPS says. The name Denali comes from deenaalee in the Koyukon language, and names from the north of the range mean the tall one. In 1897 a gold prospector called it Mount McKinley, after William McKinley, who had just been elected president. The park was created in 1917 and renamed Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980. The mountain's official name changed to Denali in 2015, and in 2025 the US government changed it back to Mount McKinley.

In 1913, Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Walter Harper and Robert Tatum made the first climb to the top. Walter Harper, an Alaska Native, was the first to step on the summit.

NPS records that no fewer than nine Alaska Native groups have used names for the mountain; linguist James Kari notes northern and western Athabascan names mean 'the tall one' and southern ones 'mountain-big', and Denali derives from Koyukon deenaalee. Russian explorers called it Tenada and Bulshaia Gora; prospectors used Densmore Mountain; 'Mount McKinley' appeared in an 1897 New York Sun article by William Dickey. Mount McKinley National Park was established on 26 February 1917; the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act renamed it Denali National Park and Preserve. In 2015 President Barack Obama and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell restored the name Denali to the mountain, and in 2025 President Donald Trump issued an executive order changing it back to Mount McKinley; the park keeps the name Denali National Park and Preserve.

The first attempt came in 1903 (Wickersham). In 1913, Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Walter Harper and Robert Tatum reached the 20,310 ft south summit, Harper first. Barbara Washburn became the first woman on top in 1947; Bradford Washburn's team pioneered the West Buttress route in 1951, and the first winter ascent came in 1967.