How hard is it to climb Denali?

Hard, and harder than its height suggests. About half of the roughly 1,000 climbers who try Denali each year reach the summit, and in a bad-weather year far fewer: 36% in 2025. The normal route, the West Buttress, needs no hard climbing, but it is a three-week expedition on glaciers in severe cold.

What makes it hard

• Denali lies so far north that the air is thinner and the cold harsher than on a peak of the same height near the equator: its 6,190 m20,308 ft feels to the body like about 7,000 m22,966 ft.
• You carry everything yourself, a heavy pack and a sled, and on the upper mountain each load goes up twice.
• You travel roped together across crevassed glacier, camp on snow, and can spend days in a tent waiting out a storm, with nights down to minus 40 degrees.
• There are no porters, no huts and no quick way down.

Who succeeds

The people who try it are generally more experienced than those on Aconcagua or Kilimanjaro, and it still turns half of them back. What counts is experience of cold, glacier travel and carrying loads, the patience to wait for weather, and a team that works. Fewer climbers die on Denali than on Aconcagua, but accidents happen every year, most of them on the way down.

What experience do I need before climbing Denali? sets out the climbs to do first, and Should I climb Denali guided or independently? the choice that comes next. Our guide's Danger, death and turnaround is the chapter to read before deciding anything else.