Mt Whitney Zone Forums The Chat Room Denali

Very big news in Alaska. Many people I know already called "Mt. McKinley" by its former name "Denali" but it is now official.

All my hiking friends know it as Denali.

A worthy nod to the first people of the north.

As with most things the story is somewhat complicated.

Is Denali the Right Name?

From the ADN:
It’s admirable the senators have taken up the cause to restore the name to its original. But they have the wrong name. Denali is the Koyukon name for the mountain, but, according to an earlier version of the Alaska Native Language Map, it is in Dena’ina territory not Koyukon territory. The Dena’ina name is Dghelay Ka’a. Sondra Shaginoff-Stuart says it on her denaina.kpc.alaska.edu website. Dghelay means mountain and ka’a means big — big mountain.


For Anglophones, “Dghelay Ka’a” will create some heartburn. The “gh” sound is not in English and is like a French “r.” The apostrophe represents a glottal stop, also not represented in English spelling, but it appears in words like “mountain” as it is normally said in most dialects without the “t."

For many people on this forum, they each have a place which embodies their first love for the outdoors.

For me there is no place like the Sierra, yet long before I ever learned to love hiking, or physical activity for that matter, I remember learning from my mom that her biological mother had been an Alaskan native.

I remember coming across a photo anthology on Alaska's National parks and another album of Alaska's Inside passage. I remember feeling a deep connection to a distant part of my heritage, and long before I felt at home in the outdoors I felt that a part of me was as inextricably wild as my distant ancestry.

I remember being drawn to Denali, there is something special about that mountain that all who see him feel. One of the largest mountains in the world by mass, and with a prominence of 18,000 feet and no immediate rival, he truly stands as The Great One.

Some years later, years after I had begun my own travels in the mountains of California my mom established contact with her birth mother. She was a native Athabascan descended from a line of tribal leadership that had lived in the Alaskan Interior for an age, carving out their livelihood and cultural identity along the innumerable miles lining the Yukon River.

Two years ago I was fortunate enough to spend a couple weeks with my grandmother, venturing out from her home in Anchorage and spending 5 days in Denali National Park and hearing her talk about her life on the river and her feelings toward European American encroachment on the local cultures easily embodied in the simple re-naming of Denali to McKinley.

Though I can't share fully in a culture which can only be earned in the crucible of shared struggle, I am excited to hear of this baser acknowledgement.

I know many family members who are excited to see this reversion to the true name, that captures the feeling of the Alaskan interior, and makes itself apparently true to all who get to set foot on the Great One.

Payback is coming. The next Republican president, in 2072, will rename Obamacare to Denalicare.

Just kidding, people. Hey, at least he still has his picture on the $500.

Read that as DenialCare...

Nice one, Wagga! Pun of the day, but its still early here.

Trump is promising to switch it back...

Obama was in my neighborhood last night and we saw his motorcade drive by.

even car manufacturers know the right name. Betcha those SUVs were Denalis, not McKinleys

Glad someone swept the absurd Ohio position out of the way

Wagga, you crack me up

All this talk reminds me of the day I all of a sudden heard someone call my beloved Mt. Baldy.....Mt. San Antonio....I was crushed, how dare they call Mt. Baldy by a different name...but with time I accepted that the mountain has two names. I sure hope I got it right calling it Mt. San Antonio, I never have been able to remember it by any other name than Baldy.

Mt Badly?

Mt. Badly-Positioned? - (Or is that Mt. Baden-Powell?)

Someone else, an Alaskan at that, suggested they change the name of the park BACK to McKinley National Park...

That isn't going to happen but somehow I think the name McKinley will survive in the state of Alaska. It has been argued by many that the mountain was called "McKinley" longer than it was called "Denali".

And in the newest news: Denali has lost 10 feet!

ha,ha, Denial, Badly, potato / Potota.

Maps should have the alternate name in parentheses.

Why did the mountain lose elevation?

Membership in HeightWatchers?

I was trying to think of some Obama political joke but I just don't have the heart for it...

The real reason is that they have used better technology for surveys that were more accurate.

My understanding, from discussions of the changes in the Whitney elevation, changinging elevation numbers is due to satellite mapping technology. Elevations are relative to the center point of the earth's geoid, "the shape that the surface of the oceans would take under the influence of Earth's gravitation and rotation alone". Since the earth is not a perfect sphere by any means, the elevations are being adjusted based on current scientific knowledge.

Either that, or CA's drought is so bad that we're now sucking up Alaska's aquifers.

Makes better sense with this.

This reasoning is actually lower tech then the satellite mapping technology issue with Whitney.

See this article:

10 Feet Cut Off from Denali

But then check out this article from a couple years ago. Apparently there has been some dispute and this finding was ultimately discarded.

Height cut by 83 feet

Also notice the Title of the article from 2013. And then the text of the article uses "Mt. McKinley".