Denali, Alaska, Northeastern Flank, 1984

(Click image to enlarge)

This view of Denali was captured in 1984 from inside Denali National Park and Preserve, about 58 km (36 miles) east of the mountain. The film on which this photograph was captured lurked in boxes and filing cabinets for roughly 37 years before it was scanned, stored digitally, and the film thrown away. Forty-one years later I'm finally doing something with it.

With a summit elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 m) above sea level Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America. It is the tallest mountain in the world from base-to-peak on land, measuring 18,000 ft (5,500 m). 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.

For centuries the native Koyukon Athabaskans who inhabit the area around the mountain have called it Dinale or Denali which translates to "the tall one". During the Russian ownership of Alaska, the common name for the mountain was Bolshaya Gora, which is the Russian translation of Denali.

For a few years around 1890 Denali was briefly renamed Densmore's Mountain after the first non-native Alaskan gold prospector to reach its base. I'm sure native Alaskans were enthused. Then in 1896 the mountain was designated "Mount McKinley" by New Hampshire-born Seattleite named William Dickey as a partisan political move to support the Republican presidential candidate William McKinley. McKinley became president the following year and was assassinated in 1901. Many Alaskans continued to refer to the mountain as Denali, and in 1975 the Alaskan state board on geographic names made Denali official for state use. After more than 100 years and a decades long struggle by Alaskans to restore the mountain's original name, it was officially designated Denali by the U.S. government in 2015.

As an act of vengeance against the politician who presided over the 2015 renaming, America's first felon President vowed to return the name of Mount McKinley on January 20, 2025. Regardless of whether he's successful, the people who matter will continue to call it Denali as they have for centuries.