Does Pikes Peak Look Like Denali?

Moonset over Pikes Peak…or is it Denali?
Photograph © Stewart M. Green

Bob Schaffer, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Colorado, probably needs to take a refresher course in Colorado mountain geography. In his first TV spot (watch it here on YouTube), which came out this week, the Ohio-born Schaffer talked about his ties to Colorado. In the ad, Schaffer, jerking his head toward a snowcapped mountain in the background, says, “I proposed to my wife Maureen on top of Pikes Peak.” The problem is that the mountain in the background is not Pikes Peak but Denali, AKA Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America and only six thousand feet higher and a few thousand miles away in the wilds of Alaska!

Schaffer campaign manager Dick Wadhams says, “What is frustrating about it is that when we saw the rough cut of the ad, we asked the media consultant to check that.” The consultant, DMM Media in Washington D.C., assured them that it was a stock photo from Colorado, so they ran the ad. Big mistake...Denali…Pikes Peak. Do they look anything alike?

Immediately the Colorado Democratic Party and ProgressNowAction, an on-line progressive advocacy group, jumped all over the mistake. Michael Huttner of ProgressNowAction said, “That Schaffer would claim ‘Colorado common sense’ when he doesn't know the difference between Pikes Peak and Denali in Alaska shows he's a fool.” He added, “To Schaffer, who came here from Ohio, all mountains probably look the same, but Coloradoans with common sense know better.”

Of course, to add insult to injury, Schaffer’s opponent Democratic Congressional Representative Mark Udall is a long-time climber and mountaineer who has climbed all of Colorado's Fourteeners and high peaks in other parts of the world, was a course director for Outward Bound and later its Executive Director for ten years. Campaign spokeswoman Taylor West said Udall won’t confuse the two mountains—he’s climbed them both.

More Reading:
Pikes Peak: Colorado's 31st Highest Mountain
Colorado Springs Gazette: Candidate misidentifies Mount McKinley as Pikes Peak
Denver Post: Schaffer ad goof: Oops, wrong state