Talk:Mount McKinley

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[edit] Denali or McKinley?

Should the name of this article be changed to Denali, with a redirect put in from Mount McKinley? (which is the reverse of how it's set up now). Denali is the original Native American name, and the name of the National Park (although per the US Park Service site, they call it Mt. McKinley in Denali NP, which is silly). I just made a similar suggestion on the talk page of Krakatoa (the real name of the volcano was Krakatau). There doesn't seem to be a consistent wikipolicy on this, as many geographical features have multiple names. But, for example, Ayers Rock redirects to Uluru. But evidently they decided not to rename Victoria Falls Mosi-oa-Tunya (the local name). Binkymagnus 01:32, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

The official name is McKinley, and the most commonly used. Sometimes you'll see changes to native names - these reflect official name changes, which happen periodically, but not to McKinley. The cynics suggest that the park was named "Denali" as a compromise that allowed McKinley to stay as it is (as the highest peak in the US, it appears in print a lot.) Stan 05:21, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The article's name should be McKinley(official) but should be refered to as Denali in the article because Wikipedia generally gives respect to the local populatin's view. Most Alaskans I've met refer to it as Denali not Mckinley. 12.220.94.199 02:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Alaskans use both names, it is not really a big deal. Hudson Stuck, leader of the original climbing party, thought it should be called Denali. But Denali, which means, "Big Mountain", is also the native name for Pioneer Peak, and probably 20 other mountains in Athabaskan Alaska. McKinley is still the official name, and I propose that the article should continue use the official name to avoid a POV issue. When the official name changes, we should change the article name to follow it. RPellessier | Talk 17:53, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
As the article now states, the name is officially "Denali" according to the Alaska Board of Geographic Names. It's just that the national board officially disagrees. So both are "official", you just have to pick your authorizing organization. - BT 16:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the repeated changes of the sentence "Denali is the name preferred by the mountaineering community": if you can provide a reference to support the change to "Mount McKinley", please do so on this page and we can discuss it. Please do not simply keep re-changing the sentence without support. Also, if anyone else has a reference supporting the "Denali" usage, it would be good to put it in. --Spireguy 17:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the recent edits changing McKinley to Denali: please give your rationale here, and if it is generally desired, we can re-open the name discussion. -- Spireguy 14:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

As an individual who lives in this region I have issues with the bias in the citation. The use of 'denali' and the assumption that this is fully accepted as a name/name change is in need of a citation or removal. The 'official' naming of geographic features is the purview of the United States government, not individuals, organizations or states with in the union. If some one was willing to site ALL of the names used (many that are not listed and are from various tribal groups)then it could be understandable to include them. The legal/official name of the mountain is Mt. McKinley. Citations for this can be found by the going to the group that names all geographic features in this country. Since, via review of other wiki pages, it appears that a community standard of using national designations has been accepted, why should an acception be made for this particular geographic feture? -- PandaKahn1:55, 13 September 2007 (AST)

The article name is "Mount McKinley", which follows the federal official name. That is in line with Wikipedia guidelines, as I read them. However those guidelines very much do not say that common alternate names should be suppressed. In this case, the alternate name "Denali" has a very high standing, being an official name at the state level, and also a very widely used name (E.g. I can think of four mountaineering guides off the top of my head which use the name Denali, although I can also think of one that uses McKinley---do a search on amazon.com, for example.) The fact that the name is controversial is also in itself notable, and that is why it is addressed in the article.
Given all that, I'm not sure what PandaKahn's objection is; maybe PandaKahn can make clearer where the supposed bias toward "Denali" lies. -- Spireguy 22:08, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why have Mauna Loa in here?

The article gives some comparison to Mauna Loa and Everest. I am not sure if they have any relevance.

I'd say the comparison to Everest is relevant, although the notion of "height above base" is intrinsically slippery. Denali's massive rise above local terrain is one of its key features. --Spireguy 19:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization, additions

I just added a lot of content to this article, and reorganized it as well. Feel free to make comments about the new organization; in particular I'm not wedded to this particular ordering of the sections. --Spireguy 19:37, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Possible POV in "Name Controversy" section

Is it just me, or is that section biased toward the Denali side? I've added the POV-check template to that section for review by more experienced Wikipedians. —smably 19:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't write that material (although I did put it in the "Name Controversy" section), but I don't think it's particularly biased. The truth is that this mountain, more than almost any other, does have a lot of native-name support, so it's important to mention that. I would drop the quotes around "McKinley" though. (Also see the "Denali or McKinley" thread above.) -- Spireguy 15:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, maybe it is accurate. It just looked to me as if it were saying "everyone agrees that the name is Denali, but some crazy congressman keeps introducing legislation so it stays McKinley", instead of "many people believe it should be called Denali; but others, including Ralph Regula, disagree". (In other words, it seems to be trying to convince me that the name should be Denali, instead of dispassionately presenting the arguments of each side. If there really is a controversy, surely there's more than one side to it, even if there is a lot of support for the native name.) —smably 20:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
The text and controversy are accurate. I would not say merely Congressman, but people from Ohio defend that naming. The Congressmen are merely their representatives. Maybe the rest of us should consider renaming Ohio to Nukansas or something. --eugene miya [climber] 20:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
First: above I should have said "quotes around "official"", not "McKinley", in case that confused anybody. Second: I can see the interpretation smably put on it, and perhaps simple changes of phrasing would make it clearer. But I agree with Eugene that the substance is accurate. Third: I would leave it as referring to the Congressman, not something like "the people of Ohio." He does represent them, but I don't know of a statewide referendum on this particular issue. -- Spireguy 19:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and did a little tweaking of the paragraph. I dropped the quotes around "official", and added a sentence about the name McKinley having some general support, not just Ralph. Seems pretty balanced to me now. -- Spireguy 21:45, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It would be cool to have actual references for the position of the "Indian-rights activists" referred to, and for the position of the "mountaineering community" - just going by the titles in the references, publishers awkwardly squeeze both names in, suggesting that neither name alone would be satisfactory to much of their audience. Stan 22:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Great! Thanks for the work, Spireguy. That section sounds a lot more neutral now, to my ears at least. I'd be happy to remove the POV template, assuming that no one else has a problem with the section. Anyone have any objections? If not, I'll get rid of the template tomorrow. —smably 22:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Ah, so you were editing while I wanted to place one more edit. Basically, I think the tone of what you guys are proposing is fairly neutral. It's not an issue that we are going to resolve here, but I think you guys are basically fair.--eugene miya [climber] 23:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Added note, one source of naming in the US if you want a link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Board_on_Geographic_Names . --eugene miya [climber] 23:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the note about McKinley's never visiting the mountain. In addition to being unsourced, it's really not relevant. Many mountains are named for people who never visit them; in fact many are named for people who are deceased. So there is nothing special about McKinley's never having visited the mountain (especially since it was hard to travel to Alaska at the time, he had a pretty demanding job, and he died four years later). Hence including it in this section is somewhat POV, IMO. -- Spireguy 14:19, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I have never even heard of the mountain being referred to as "Mt Mckinly", Only as Denali, I believe the native title should have precedence. Oz

I believe that the section on name controversy is still maintains unnecessary point of view and give too much prominence to this question in the article. I do not believe there is much controversy in the mountain's name. Although the previous writer has never heard of the mountain referred to as McKinley, the mountain is widely known by that name, even among other mountaineers with whom I climbed. The unsourced information on Congressman Ralph Regula should either be properly cited or removed. I also question the sentence "As decades passed, many began to view this renaming as colonial and disrespectful." Do many people view Alaska's relationship with the United States as colonial and disrespectful? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaedglass (talk • contribs) 18:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed link

I removed the link to the www.wildlifechronicles.com site. It was spam of a particularly poor nature: the link itself was broken, and when I looked around the site, the only thing I could find was a photo of McKinley with a caption which gave its elevation as 14,495 feet. -- Spireguy 19:02, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted weather pictures table

I reverted the added table and additional picture, since the additional picture is almost exactly the same as the picture in the infobox, and the table didn't work (it extended awkwardly into the next section). I think the point about the mountain making its own weather is made just fine as it was, and doesn't require an additional picture for contrast. -- Spireguy 19:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protect?

Shall we ask for a semi-protect here? The ratio of vandalism to useful edits is very high. -- Spireguy 22:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Latitude and pressure

I partially reverted the recent change to this paragraph because the newer version was significantly less clear. In the process I also deleted the "proximity to the jet stream" part, which had bothered me for some time. The only mention I saw of that in the cited sources refers to the jet stream affecting the mountain in the winter, which is not relevant to 99.99% of climbing attempts.

In fact the basic claim that the effective elevation (in terms of atmospheric pressure) is a few thousand feet higher, while repeated widely, is still dubious, to my mind. I have seen calculations that make the effect rather smaller. However the claim as stated in the article is plausible and sourced, so I won't change it. -- Spireguy 22:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the point is that the atmosphere is thinner in the vicinity of the mountain, so that altitude sickness is worse than it would be at a similar elevation in a different location. But yes, only climbers get altitude sickness, not mountains. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 00:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

This may be but as stated the association solely with latitude is misleading at best. The reference to (http://7summits.com/denali/denali.php) is also not applicable. I am done with this. ARS

Here's the relevant section from the above link: "The difference in the barometric pressure at northern latitudes affects acclimatization on Denali and other high arctic mountains. Denali's latitude is 63° while the latitude of Everest is 27°. On a typical summit day in May, the Denali climber will be at the equivalent of 22,000' (6900M) when compared to climbing in the Himalayas in May. This phenomenon of lower barometric pressure at higher elevations is caused by the troposphere being thinner at the poles." So it's definitely relevant; the problem I have is that it's not a very reliable source.
As to the other comment, I now see ARS's claim, namely that the article implies that the risk of altitude illness is solely due to the latitude, and not also (and primarily) due to the altitude. I think that may warrant a change, although I have to say that since it is called "altitude illness" the implication is pretty clear as to what the primary risk factor is. I guess that it's possible that a reader may simply not realize that a 6,000m+ mountain is not very high in altitude. (It's good to remember that what is obvious to someone used to thinking about mountains is not necessarily obvious to the casual reader.) I'll see if I can make a change that doesn't overelaborate the obvious. -- Spireguy 14:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is Everest Ranked 1st?

Mickenley is taller than everest yet everest is ranked first?

McKinley has a greater rise above its base than Everest (although this is an inherently ill-defined concept), but it is not even close in elevation above sea level, as explained in the article. -- Spireguy 02:44, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I read somewhere that McKinley was the tallest mountain in the world that had a base at sea level. It also said the Himalayas (including Everest) were hust peaks on a high plateau. Still, the mountains are grouped by height above sea level. Press olive, win oil (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)