Denali, sir

Denali. Photo: Pieter De Pauw / iStock
Denali. Photo: Pieter De Pauw / iStock

I’ve seen a lot of photos of Alaska’s Denali, highest mountain in North America. But for some reason this particular photo really caught my attention. Maybe it’s the contrast of the rolling green land in the foreground. It looks like someone took several dozen mountains and just dropped them all in the same spot. Peaks and ridges sticking out all over the place. This is a mountain I’d call “Sir.”

Formerly known as Mt. McKinley, this ‘little’ lump in the landscape is 20,310 feet high. It has had a number of different names over the years, but Denali is the one originally bestowed by the local Koyukon Athabascan people hundreds of years ago.

18 thoughts on “Denali, sir

      1. Been there, done that. I was just talking to a friend about the Grand Canyon, she’s never been. I can’t imagine someone from the west never making it out to the Grand Canyon. It truly is awesome. So, is Yellowstone, but different. The Grand Canyon is almost surreal.

        1. Certainly the canyon is at the top of my list. And I’d want to spend several days there, whatever it takes to really see everything. But there’s so much more out here to see! All the way from Banff NP down through Yellowstone, all the parks in Utah, all the archeological stuff in NM and AZ.

  1. Sir doesn’t do it justice, such elevation needs suitable ennoblement to the peerage no less than a Duke, the highest rank for the mightes, majestic mountain in America, M’Lord Denali; has a nice ring to it!

    You ex-colonials have forgotten how to bestow and to acknowledge rank & title
    😛
    :bear:

    1. Well, at the time, it was a big deal for us to get away from all that royalty stuff. But probably the finest tribute is simply Denali (“the tall one”), the name given it by the people who’ve known it the best and the longest.

    1. Hi, welcome to Pied Type.

      It’s really impressive, isn’t it? I write often about Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park … and Denali is more than a mile higher than Longs.

    1. A quick look at your website indicates you’ve been there and seen it for yourself. How I envy that. Denali makes my Colorado Rockies look pretty tame. But I love them anyway.

... and that's my two cents