U.S. Mint art for the top contenders for the Denali National Park quarter design
In the fall of 2010, the Citizen’s Coinage Advisory Committee and the Commission of Fine Arts reviewed five designs for the reverse of the 2012 Denali National Park quarter. All five designs featured Mt. McKinley in the background. Four of the five designs showed Dall sheep, and one showed a hiker in the foreground. The iconic Dall sheep played an important part in the park’s founding. When Charles Sheldon explored the region in 1906 as he studied the sheep, he thought this area should be preserved, and his conservation efforts led to the park’s creation.
Home to a wide variety of wildlife, Denali National Park offers miles of scenic landscape and desolate, mountainous terrain. Located in the heart of this national park is Mt. McKinley. It rises 20,320 feet, and is North America’s tallest mountain. From its base at 2,000 feet above sea level, Mount McKinley soars 18,000 feet to its peak, giving it a higher vertical rise (from base to summit), than Mt. Everest, which already sits on a 17,000 foot plateau.
