What is the highest mountain in North America?

Denali, at 6,190 metres - and by one measure it is more impressive than Everest. Everest starts from a plateau already above 5,000 metres, so its rise above the surrounding land is around 3,600; Denali rises about 5,500 metres from its base, which is the greatest base-to-peak rise of any mountain sitting on land.

Its latitude makes it harder than the altitude suggests. At 63 degrees north the atmosphere is thinner for the same elevation than it would be at the equator, so the effective altitude is greater, and it produces some of the coldest conditions of any mountain - recorded below minus 70 with wind chill. The pressure difference means climbers experience Denali's summit rather as if it were several hundred metres higher.

The name is a long argument, now settled twice. Denali is Koyukon Athabaskan for the high one and is what the mountain was called locally. It was renamed McKinley in 1896 by a prospector who supported a presidential candidate who had never been to Alaska; Alaska renamed it Denali at state level in 1975 and asked the federal government to follow, which was blocked for forty years by Ohio's congressional delegation. The federal name changed in 2015 and was changed back by executive order in 2025.