Denali
Denali, federally designated as Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak on land, measuring. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of, Denali is the third most prominent and third-most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.
The Koyukon people who inhabit the area around the mountain have referred to the peak as "Denali" for centuries. In 1896, a gold prospector named it "Mount McKinley" in support of then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who later became the 25th president; McKinley's name was the official name recognized by the federal government of the United States from 1917 until 2015. In August 2015, 40 years after Alaska had officially named the mountain Denali, the United States Department of the Interior under the Obama administration changed the official federal name of the mountain also to Denali. In January 2025, the Department of the Interior under the Trump administration reverted the mountain's official federal name to Mount McKinley.
In 1903, James Wickersham recorded the first attempt at climbing Denali, which was unsuccessful. In 1906, Frederick Cook claimed the first ascent, but this ascent is unverified and its legitimacy questioned. The first verifiable ascent to Denali's summit was achieved on June 7, 1913, by climbers Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, Walter Harper, and Robert Tatum, who went by the South Summit. In 1951, Bradford Washburn pioneered the West Buttress route, considered to be the safest and easiest route, and therefore the most popular currently in use.
On September 2, 2015, the U.S. Geological Survey measured the mountain at high, 10 ft lower than the measured in 1952 using photogrammetry.
Geology and features
Denali is a granitic pluton, mostly pink quartz monzonite, lifted by tectonic pressure from the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate; at the same time, the sedimentary material above and around the mountain was stripped away by erosion. The forces that lifted Denali also caused many deep earthquakes in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is seismically active beneath Denali, a tectonic region that is known as the "McKinley cluster".Structural geology
The high topography of Denali is related to the complex structural relationships created by the right-lateral Denali Fault and Denali Fault Bend. The Denali Fault is caused by stresses created by the low-angle subduction of the Yakutat microplate underneath Alaska. The Denali Fault Bend is characterized as a gentle restraining bend. The Denali Fault Bend represents a curvature in the Denali Fault that is approximately 75 km long. This curvature creates what is known as a "space problem". As the right-lateral movement along the Denali Fault continues, high compressional forces created at the fault bend essentially push the crust up in a vertical fashion. The longer the crust stays within the restraining bend, the higher the topography will be. Several active normal faults north of the restraining bend have recently been mapped with slip rates of approximately 2–6 mm/year. These normal faults help to accommodate the unusual curvature of the restraining bend.Elevation
Denali has a summit elevation of above sea level, making it the highest peak in North America and the northernmost mountain above elevation in the world. Measured from base to peak at some, it is among the largest mountains situated entirely above sea level. Denali rises from a sloping plain with elevations from, for a base-to-peak height of. By comparison, Mount Everest rises from the Tibetan Plateau at a much higher base elevation. Base elevations for Everest range from on the south side to on the Tibetan Plateau, for a base-to-peak height in the range of. Denali's base-to-peak height is little more than half the of the volcano Mauna Kea, which lies mostly under water.Geography of the mountain
Denali has two significant summits: the South Summit is the higher one, while the North Summit has an elevation of and a prominence of approximately. The North Summit is sometimes counted as a separate peak and sometimes not; it is rarely climbed, except by those doing routes on the north side of the massif.Five large glaciers flow off the slopes of the mountain. The Peters Glacier lies on the northwest side of the massif, while the Muldrow Glacier falls from its northeast slopes. Just to the east of the Muldrow, and abutting the eastern side of the massif, is the Traleika Glacier. The Ruth Glacier lies to the southeast of the mountain, and the Kahiltna Glacier leads up to the southwest side of the mountain. With a length of, the Kahiltna Glacier is the longest glacier in the Alaska Range.
Naming
The Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have, for centuries, referred to the peak as Dinale or Denali. The name is based on a Koyukon word for 'high' or 'tall'. During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora, which is the Russian translation of Denali. It was briefly called Densmore's Mountain in the late 1880s and early 1890s after Frank Densmore, a gold prospector who was the first non-native Alaskan to reach the base of the mountain.William A Dickey
In 1896, gold prospector William Dickey named it McKinley as political support for then-presidential candidate William McKinley, who became president the following year.The United States formally recognized the name Mount McKinley after President Woodrow Wilson signed the Mount McKinley National Park Act of February 26, 1917. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the north and south peaks of the mountain the "Churchill Peaks", in honor of British statesman Winston Churchill. The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the state name of the mountain to Denali in 1975, which was how it was referred to locally. However, a request in 1975 from the Alaska state legislature to the United States Board on Geographic Names to do the same at the federal level was blocked by Ohio congressman Ralph Regula, whose district included McKinley's home town of Canton.
On August 28, 2015, just ahead of a presidential visit to Alaska, the Barack Obama administration changed the mountain's official federal name to Denali, bringing it in line with the Alaska Geographic Board's designation. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said the change had been "a long time coming". The renaming of the mountain received praise from Alaska's senior U.S. senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, who had previously introduced legislation to accomplish the name change, but it drew criticism from several politicians from President McKinley's home state of Ohio, such as Governor John Kasich, U.S. Senator Rob Portman, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, and Representative Bob Gibbs, who described Obama's action as "constitutional overreach" because he said an act of Congress was required to rename the mountain. The Alaska Dispatch News reported that the secretary of the interior has authority under federal law to change geographic names when the Board of Geographic Names does not act on a naming request within a "reasonable" period of time. Jewell told the Alaska Dispatch News that "I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time."
In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump stated that he planned to revert the mountain's official federal name back to Mount McKinley during his second term, in honor of President William McKinley. Trump had previously proposed changing the name in 2017, drawing opposition from Alaska's Republican governor Mike Dunleavy. His 2017 proposal was strongly opposed by both Republican U.S. senators from Alaska, Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, who, along with Alaska State Senator Scott Kawasaki, a Democrat, again expressed their preference for Denali in 2024. On January 20, 2025, shortly after his second inauguration, Trump signed an executive order requiring the secretary of the interior to revert the Obama-era name change within 30 days of signing, renaming Denali back to Mount McKinley in official maps and communications from the American federal government. The executive order does not change the name of Denali National Park. On January 23, 2025, the Department of the Interior changed the mountain's official federal name back to Mount McKinley. The same day, the Associated Press announced that it would use Mount McKinley instead of Denali, with the reasoning that as president, Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names of features lying within national borders.
Hudson Stuck, the organizer of the Stuck-Karstens Expedition, which was the first confirmed team to summit the mountain, preferred the name Denali over McKinley, referring to it as Denali nearly exclusively in his account of the expedition.
According to the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development's official database of business licenses, businesses named after Denali outnumber those named after McKinley by a margin of six to one.
Indigenous names for Denali can be found in seven different Alaskan languages. The names fall into two categories. To the south of the Alaska Range in the Dena'ina and Ahtna languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as 'big mountain'. To the north of the Alaska Range in the Lower Tanana, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Holikachuk, and Deg Xinag languages the mountain is known by names that are translated as 'the high one', 'the tall one'.
Asked about the importance of the mountain and its name, Will Mayo, former president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, an organization that represents 42 Athabaskan tribes in the Alaskan interior, said: "It's not one homogeneous belief structure around the mountain, but we all agree that we're all deeply gratified by the acknowledgment of the importance of Denali to Alaska's people."
The following table lists the Alaskan Athabascan names for Denali.
| Literal meaning | Native language | Spelling in the local practical alphabet | Spelling in a standardized alphabet | IPA transcription |
| 'The tall one' | Koyukon | Deenaalee | Diinaalii | |
| 'The tall one' | Lower Tanana | Deenadheet, Deenadhee | Diinaadhiit, Diinaadhii | |
| 'The tall one' | Middle Tanana | Diineezi | Diinaadhi | |
| 'The tall one' | Upper Kuskokwim | Denaze | Diinaazii | |
| 'The tall one' | Deg Xinag | Dengadh, Dengadhi | Dengadh, Dengadhe | |
| 'The tall one' | Holikachuk | Denadhe | Diinaadhii | |
| 'Big mountain' | Ahtna | Dghelaay Ce'e, Deghilaay Ce'e | Dghelaay Ke'e, Deghilaay Ke'e | |
| 'Big mountain' | Upper Inlet Dena'ina | Dghelay Ka'a | Dghelay Ka'a | |
| 'Big mountain' | Lower Inlet Dena'ina | Dghili Ka'a | Dghili Ka'a |