Mount McKinley—also called Denali—is North America’s highest mountain, elevation 20,320 feet. Mount McKinley/Denali is located within Denali National Park & Preserve.

The Parks Highway provides the most direct highway access to Denali National Park and Preserve (formerly Mount McKinley National Park) from either Anchorage or Fairbanks. On a clear day, Mount McKinley/Denali may be visible from as far away as Anchorage. But because the mountain generates its own weather conditions, even on a clear day it may be shrouded in clouds. Summer’s often overcast or rainy weather frequently obscures the mountain as well, giving visitors only about a 30 to 40 percent chance of seeing the famous peak.

If not obscured by clouds, the mountain is visible from several viewpoints along the 92-mile Park Road that traverses Denali National Park between the main park entrance at Milepost A 237.3 Parks Highway and private land holdings in the Kantishna area to the west. There are also formal viewpoints along the Parks Highway: Denali Viewpoint South, Milepost A 135.2; Denali Viewpoint North, Milepost A 162.4, and Denali View North Campground at Milepost A 162.7. There is a Denali viewpoint on the Talkeetna Spur Road, 12.8 miles from Milepost A 98.7.

First mention of “the mountain” was in 1794, when English explorer Capt. George Vancouver spotted “a stupendous snow mountain” from Cook Inlet. Early Russian explorers and traders called the peak Bolshaia Gora, or “Big Mountain.” The Athabascan Indians of the region called it Denali, “the High One.” In 1896 a prospector, William A. Dickey, named the mountain for presidential nominee William McKinley of Ohio, although McKinley had no connection with Alaska. Protests that the mountain be returned to its original name, Denali, ensued almost at once. But it was not until the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 changed the park’s status and name that the Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the mountain’s name back to Denali. (The U.S. Board of Geographic Names, however, still shows the mountain as McKinley.)

Although considered a technically easy climb by the most popular routes, an ascent of McKinley is a serious undertaking made difficult by the cold, the weather, and the sheer scale of the massive mountain. On average during the past few years, about 1000 climbers attempt the summit per season, 500 make it, and 3 die. The climbing season runs from mid-April until mid-July, since before then it is too cold, and after that too stormy and the snow too mushy and unstable from too much sun. Theoretically, early season (May) is colder but less stormy, and later (June) is warmer with more snowfall, but in a given year anything can happen. Success percentages for a year have gone as low as 31% (1987) or as high as 67% (1983).

The standard route is the technically easy West Buttress, which starts at a glacier airplane runway at 7200'--virtually everyone flies on to the glacier to avoid an arduous approach. The standard rule is to allow three weeks for the climb, and to be prepared to spend a week of that holed up in your tent waiting for the weather to clear. Other routes include: the Muldrow Glacier route, technically easy but involving a long approach over the tundra from the north; the West Rib, a more challenging climb involving a steep couloir; and the Cassin Ridge, a committing and difficult rock climb.
Many climbers call the mountain by its original Native American name, Denali, meaning "great one". To many it seems a more fitting name than one memorializing the obscure 25th U.S. president, William McKinley. The U.S. Congress changed the name of the surrounding park to Denali National Park, but a congressman from Ohio (McKinley's home state) blocked the name change for the mountain itself. So the official name of the mountain remains Mount McKinley. Although the peak was named by a partisan prospector before McKinley was even elected president, his subsequent 1901 assassination helped make the name stick.

The best justification for continued use of the name McKinley is that Theodore Roosevelt was the vice-president selected by William McKinley, whose subsequent assassination put the first environment-minded president into office.