North America

North America has an incredibly wide variety of mountains, including ice-covered giants worthy of the Himalaya, huge ranges of craggy rock pinnacles, gentle, rolling, forest-covered hills, and exotic volcanoes on small tropical islands. Among the continents, only Asia has more mountains, mountain ranges, and variety of peaks.

The bulk of North America's mountains lie in a massive "cordilleran system" of nearly continuous ranges that run down the western edge of the continent, from Alaska to Panama. Here are the world-class mountaineering destinations of the Alaksa and Saint Elias ranges, plus many other ranges it would take more than a lifetime to thoroughly explore: the Brooks Range, The Coast Ranges, the Rockies, the Cascade Range, the Sierra Nevada, the Sierra Madre ranges of Mexico, and the long volcanic chain of Central America. In the entire world, perhaps only the Central Asia complex of the Himalaya/Karakoram/Tien Shan/Pamir/Tibet/Central China has more pure mountain volume.

Outside of the western Cordilleras, North America still boasts the icy crags of the Arctic islands, the sprawling forested ridges of the Appalachians, and the emerald ranges and volcanoes of the Caribbean.

Although there is a huge expanse of relatively flat land stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, across the Canadian Shield and Great Plains, the majority of North America remains an excellent place for lovers of mountains.