Mount Denali / Mount McKinley
The tallest mountain in the US is Mount Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, located in central Alaska. Actually, if you look at vertical rise, it's the tallest mountain to climb in the world!
What does that mean? All mountains are measured in how high they rise from sea level. However, all mountains don't sit on the sea. Mount Everest, for example, is already sitting on a high plateau, that's about 17,000 feet off the sea. So when people are at the "base" of Mount Everest, they're 17,000 feet in the air already. When they climb, they only have to climb another 12,000 feet to reach the top.
In comparison, Mount Denali is sitting on a plateau that's about 2,000 feet in the air. So climbers who begin from there and climb to the top have to climb 18,000 feet to reach the top.
The word Denali means "the high one" in native Alaskan.
Amazingly, even though Mount Denali is 130 miles north of Anchorage, you can see it! Here are a few photos of Denali at "visual size", taken from Anchorage. You can only see it on a clear day, and it's a faint shimmer on the horizon. First, in this image, Mt. Susitna is on the left, and Denali is on the right.

These are photos just of Denali.




Now for a close up of these exact same photos, so it's easier to see the mountain. It's still faint - remember this is VERY far away! You're seeing 130 miles away!


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