Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 m) above sea level. With a topographic prominence of 20,194 feet (6,155 m) and a topographic isolation of 4,621.1 miles (7,436.9 km), Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest and Aconcagua. Located in the Alaska Range in the interior of the U.S. state of Alaska, Denali is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.
The Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the seven traditional continents. Climbing to the summit of all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first achieved on 30 April 1985 by Richard Bass. Climbing the Seven Summits and additionally reaching the North and South poles has been dubbed the Explorers Grand Slam.
Jon Krakauer is an American writer and mountaineer. He is the author of bestselling non-fiction books—Into the Wild; Into Thin Air; Under the Banner of Heaven; and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman—as well as numerous magazine articles. He was a member of an ill-fated expedition to summit Mount Everest in 1996, one of the deadliest disasters in the history of climbing Everest.
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Soviet and Kazakhstani mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8000 m.
The Eiger is a 3,967-metre (13,015 ft) mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at 4,158 m (13,642 ft), constituting one of the most emblematic sights of the Swiss Alps. While the northern side of the mountain rises more than 3,000 m (10,000 ft) above the two valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, the southern side faces the large glaciers of the Jungfrau-Aletsch area, the most glaciated region in the Alps. The most notable feature of the Eiger is its nearly 1,800-metre-high (5,900 ft) north face of rock and ice, named Eiger-Nordwand, Eigerwand or just Nordwand, which is the biggest north face in the Alps. This huge face towers over the resort of Kleine Scheidegg at its base, on the eponymous pass connecting the two valleys.
Christopher Johnson McCandless, also known by his self-made nickname "Alexander Supertramp", was an American adventurer who sought an increasingly nomadic lifestyle as he grew up. McCandless is the subject of Into the Wild, a nonfiction book by Jon Krakauer that was later made into a full-length feature film.
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm. Krakauer's expedition was led by guide Rob Hall. Other groups were trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants.
Lhotse Shar is a subsidiary mountain of Lhotse, at 8,383 m (27,503 ft) high. It was first climbed by Sepp Mayerl and Rolf Walter on 12 May 1970.
Robert Edwin Hall was a New Zealand mountaineer. He was the head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition during which he, a fellow guide, and two clients died. A best-selling account of the expedition was given in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and the expedition has been dramatised in the 2015 film Everest. At the time of his death, Hall had just completed his fifth ascent to the summit of Everest, more at that time than any other non-Sherpa mountaineer.
John Gill is an American mathematician who has achieved recognition for his rock-climbing. Many climbers consider him the father of modern bouldering.
Mount Hunter or Begguya is a mountain in Denali National Park in Alaska. It is approximately eight miles (13 km) south of Denali, the highest peak in North America. "Begguya" means child in the Dena'ina language. Mount Hunter is the third-highest major peak in the Alaska Range.
The Moose's Tooth is a rock peak on the east side of the Ruth Gorge in the Central Alaska Range, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Denali. Despite its relatively low elevation, it is a difficult climb. It is notable for its many large rock faces and its long ice couloirs, which are famous in mountaineering circles, and have seen a number of highly technical ascents.
Gary Hemming was a noted American mountaineer. Together with Royal Robbins he made the first ascent of the American Direct route on the Aiguille du Dru in Chamonix in 1962, and was widely known in France for his role as a rescuer of a party on the same mountain in 1966, earning him the moniker "le beatnik des cimes".
The Stampede Trail is a remote road and trail located in the Denali Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Apart from a paved or maintained gravel road for 8 miles (13 km) between Eight Mile Lake and the trail's eastern end, the route consists of a primitive and at times dangerous hiking or ATV trail following the path of the original road, which has deteriorated over the years. The route ends at an abandoned antimony mine at 63.740739°N 150.379229°W along Stampede Creek, a couple miles past Stampede Airport's grass airstrip.
Devils Thumb, or Taalkhunaxhkʼu Shaa in Tlingit, is a mountain in the Stikine Icecap region of the Alaska–British Columbia border, near Petersburg. It is named for its projected thumb-like appearance. Its name in the Tlingit language means "the mountain that never flooded" and is said to have been a refuge for people during Aangalakhu. It is one of the peaks that marks the border, and is also listed on maps as Boundary Peak 71.
David Stuart Roberts was an American climber, mountaineer, and author of books and articles about climbing. He was particularly noted for his books The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative, chronicling major ascents in Alaska in the 1960s, which had a major impact on the form of mountaineering literature.
The Seven Second Summits are the second-highest mountains of each of the seven continents. All of these mountain peaks are separate peaks rather than a sub-peak of the continents' high point. The Seven Second Summits are considered by many mountaineers and geographers as a much harder challenge than the traditional Seven Summits.
Peter Kittilsby Schoening was an American mountaineer. Schoening was one of two Americans to first successfully climb the Pakistani peak Gasherbrum I in 1958, and was one of the first to summit Mount Vinson in Antarctica in 1966.
