On Earth, there are not so many corners left that escaped the "caring" hands of Homo sapiens and preserved their flora and fauna in their original form, giving a rare opportunity to see what the world looked like before the advent of technological progress. Let's get to know one of them.
What continent is Mount Denali on?
A beautiful, untouched by civilization land that has preserved the virgin and harsh beauty of wild nature, where rainbow trout splashes in the purest waters of Wonder Lake, herds of caribou graze peacefully, and huge grizzlies leisurely stroll along the tundra against the backdrop of a dissolving where something in the clouds at the top of Mount Denali. On what continent of our ever-hurrying-smoking planet can such a unique place be located, you ask? This is North America, Alaska (USA). Here, more than a century ago (in February 1917), a national park was founded, covering a huge area of \u200b\u200babout two and a half million hectares (6,075,029 acres), so named because of its main attraction - the mountains of Denali.
Topland border of North America
The unique two-headed Denali is the highest point on the North American continent. Located in the south-central region of Alaska, the mountain peak rises at an altitude of 6190 m above sea level. This data was obtained in September 2015 from a GPS recalculation that was four meters lower than the original 1953 estimate by climber, photographer and cartographer Bradford Washburn.
Mount Denali is located about 210 km northwest of Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, and about 275 km southwest of Fairbanks. As a segment of the Alaska Range and the centerpiece of the national park of the same name, the peak is a giant block of granite that was raised above the earth's crust during a period of tectonic activity, about 60 million years ago. The distance from the plateau where Mount Denali originates to its highest peak (one of the two) is 5500 m, which is even higher than the Nepalese Everest, which from its base, located at an altitude of 5200 m above sea level, has a distance at 3700 m. The upper part of the mountain is covered with snow fields that feed multiple glaciers, some of which extend up to 50 km.
Great seen from a distance
Europeans learned about the location of Mount Denali thanks to the English explorer and navigator George Vancouver, who in 1794 first saw it from Cook Inlet, located off the southern coast of Alaska. The Russian pioneer Ferdinand Wrangel in 1839 marked the mountain on the map as the highest point of the entire Russian Empire at that time, which it remained until it became the property of the American government.
Different names for the Great Peak
The Koyukons locals called this stone giant Denali, which means great or high in Athabaskan. Approximately the same, Big Mountain, it was also called by Russian settlers. In 1889, traveler Frank Densmore modestly named the mountain after himself. However, already in 1896, the gold digger and explorer William DeKay proposed naming the peak in honor of McKinley Jr., who quickly became the 25th President of the United States. He never visited his mountain of the same name, as well as other parts of Alaska. The name McKinley became the official name for the peak and the national park adjacent to it for many decades.
By the mid-1970s, attempts were made to restore the indigenous name, but they ran into resistance, mainly from lawmakers in Ohio, President McKinley's home state. Despite the fact that the state of Alaska officially changed its name to Denali in 1975 and petitioned the US Congress to confirm the renaming of the territory, it was not until 1980, when the park was tripled in size, that the historical name was returned to it. At the same time, the federal government retained the name of Mount McKinley.
But as time went on, the new-old name became more common among park goers and the public, and in the summer of 2015, with the approval of President Obama,The Department of the Interior has officially renamed the ancient peak Mount Denali.
Taming the Shrew Mountain
In the history of the Great Mountain, its summit was conquered many times, but not all attempts were successful, or rather, about 60% of all. Located at high latitudes, with gusty winds and temperatures as low as -35°C (with readings of -83°C near the summit), it has killed almost a hundred thrill-seekers on its snowy slopes, a list that grows every year.
The first unsuccessful attempt to conquer the height was made in 1903 by the American judge James Vickersh. Then the doctor and explorer Frederick Cook, in 1906, announced the conquest of Denali, although the controversy on whether he was there or not continues to this day. Among those who were undoubtedly among the first to visit the main peak of North America is Hudson Stack, who in 1913, through incredible efforts, finally achieved the dream of many climbers. His ascent lasted almost four months (from March 17 to June 7).
"Die Hard" for all climbers
Modern conquerors of Mount Denali travel by plane to the base camp located on the Kahiltna glacier (the southern slope of the mountain at an altitude of 2195 meters), from where they already begin their ascent to the top along several well-known routes.
About 600,000 people visit the Denali Game Reserve every year, mainly from May to September, and this figureis growing year by year. At the beginning of the 2017 climbing season, according to the park administration, about 800 climbers climbed the mountain.
Even experienced guides accompanying hikers on the climbing route classify the route as extremely difficult due to severe weather and difficulty in acclimatization.
And the mountain stands contented and impregnable, for the last 59.99 million years, no one has paid so much attention to it.
