The 65 Greatest Mountains for Hiking and Trekking

High country: summits, ridgelines, and seas of cloud. These are the mountains of the atlas — some walk-up viewpoints, some serious high-altitude treks. Every entry is honest about difficulty and what to bring.

Annapurna Sanctuary

Gandaki, north-central Nepal

A high glacial amphitheatre ringed by a wall of 7,000- and 8,000-metre Himalayan giants — the beating heart of one of the world's great treks, reached through rhododendron forest and terraced hills.

Mountain South Asia

Denali

Alaska, USA

The highest peak in North America — a 6,190-metre wall of rock and ice towering over the Alaskan wilderness, so tall its base-to-summit rise is among the greatest of any mountain on Earth.

Mountain North America

Grand Teton

Wyoming, USA

A wall of jagged granite peaks erupting straight from a flat valley floor with no foothills — the most abruptly dramatic mountain front in North America, mirrored in glacial lakes.

Mountain North America

Huangshan

Anhui Province, China

The 'Yellow Mountains' — a range of granite peaks and wind-sculpted pines that rise from seas of cloud, the landscape that inspired centuries of Chinese painting and poetry.

Mountain East Asia

Landmannalaugar

Southern Highlands, Iceland

Rhyolite mountains streaked in red, pink, green, and gold above black lava fields and steaming hot springs — the most colourful landscape in Iceland's remote interior highlands.

Mountain Europe

Mont Blanc

French Alps (France–Italy border)

The highest peak in the Alps and western Europe — a great dome of snow and ice above Chamonix, ringed by glaciers, granite spires, and the birthplace of mountaineering.

Mountain Europe

Mount Everest

Mahalangur Himal, Nepal / Tibet (China) border

The highest point on Earth — 8,849 metres above sea level, where the Himalaya's collision-built peaks reach into the 'death zone', drawing climbers and trekkers to the roof of the world.

Mountain South Asia

Mount Pulag

Benguet, Cordillera, Philippines

Luzon's highest peak at 2,922 metres, famous for its dawn 'sea of clouds' — a rolling white ocean seen from a summit of dwarf bamboo grassland high in the Cordillera.

Mountain Southeast Asia

Simien Mountains

Amhara, northern Ethiopia

A dramatic highland escarpment of jagged pinnacles and mile-deep gorges — the 'Roof of Africa' — home to gelada monkeys, walia ibex, and Ethiopian wolves found nowhere else.

Mountain Africa

The Dolomites

South Tyrol / Trentino / Veneto, Northern Italy

A range of pale limestone towers, sheer walls, and jagged spires in the Italian Alps that glow rose and gold at dawn and dusk — the famous 'enrosadira' — above green alpine meadows and turquoise lakes.

Mountain Europe

The Matterhorn

Zermatt, Valais — Swiss/Italian border

The most iconic peak in the Alps — a near-perfect rock pyramid rising in isolation above Zermatt, its four steep faces aligned almost to the compass points, mirrored in still alpine lakes.

Mountain Europe

Torres del Paine

Magallanes, Chilean Patagonia

The signature landscape of Chilean Patagonia — three sheer granite towers rising above windswept steppe, glacial lakes, and hanging glaciers, roamed by guanacos, condors, and pumas.

Mountain Latin America

Valley of Flowers

Uttarakhand, India

A high Himalayan valley that erupts each monsoon into a carpet of alpine wildflowers — hundreds of species blooming beneath snow peaks and glaciers in one of the world's great floral spectacles.

Mountain South Asia

Abisko

Swedish Lapland, above the Arctic Circle, Sweden

A national park in the far north of Swedish Lapland famous for some of the clearest skies on Earth — and, beneath them, one of the world's finest windows onto the northern lights.

Mountain Europe

Aconcagua

Aconcagua Provincial Park, Mendoza Province, Argentina

The highest mountain in the Americas and the loftiest peak outside Asia — a colossal Andean massif of rock, snow and thin air near Mendoza, and the most accessible of the world's Seven Summits.

Mountain Latin America

Ala Archa National Park

Kyrgyz Ala-Too range, about 35 km south of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

A glacier-filled alpine valley in the Tian Shan just 35 km from Bishkek, rising from 1,500 m to the 4,895 m summit of Semenov-Tian-Shansky Peak.

Mountain Central Asia

Aoraki / Mount Cook

Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand

New Zealand's highest peak — a snow-and-ice pyramid rising above glacier-fed turquoise lakes and the country's longest glacier, in the heart of the Southern Alps' greatest concentration of high mountains.

Mountain Oceania

Bale Mountains

Bale Zone, Oromia Region, southeastern Ethiopia

The largest stretch of Afroalpine habitat anywhere on Earth — a treeless plateau above 4,000 metres holding more than half the world's Ethiopian wolves, with cloud forest falling away down its southern side.

Mountain Africa

Bieszczady Mountains

Subcarpathia, south-east Poland

Poland's wild south-eastern corner — rolling forested ridges of the Eastern Carpathians crowned by open, treeless mountain meadows called połoniny, where wolves, lynx, bison and brown bears still roam.

Mountain Europe

Brandberg Mountain

Damaraland, Erongo Region, Northwest Namibia

Namibia's highest mountain: Königstein reaches 2,573 m on a granite massif rising more than 1,800 m above the desert, with over 43,000 rock paintings. The White Lady shelter is a guided 6 km round-trip walk. Best from May to September.

Mountain Africa

Bukhansan National Park

Northern edge of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, South Korea

A national park inside a capital city: bare Jurassic granite domes and knife-edge peaks rising above Seoul's northern suburbs, topped by Baegundae at 836.5 m and the sheer climbing dome of Insubong, all reachable by subway.

Mountain East Asia

Connemara National Park

County Galway, Ireland

A compact wilderness on Ireland's rugged west coast — bog, heath and quartzite mountains of the Twelve Bens, where Connemara ponies graze and boardwalk trails climb Diamond Hill for sweeping Atlantic views.

Mountain Europe

Cradle Mountain

Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, Central Highlands, northwest Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania's emblem: the jagged dolerite crown of Cradle Mountain rising above glacier-carved Dove Lake, in the heart of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, with wombats on the moors and golden fagus in autumn.

Mountain Oceania

Dachstein

Salzkammergut, Upper Austria / Styria / Salzburg, Austria

A great limestone massif crowning the Salzkammergut, where the Northern Alps' easternmost glaciers cling below the 2,995-metre Hoher Dachstein, and giant ice caves honeycomb the pale rock above the lakes of the Salzkammergut.

Mountain Europe

Făgăraș Mountains & the Transfăgărășan

Southern Carpathians, central Romania

Romania's highest mountains — a wall of glacier-carved peaks and cirque lakes in the Carpathians — crossed by the Transfăgărășan, one of the world's most spectacular alpine roads.

Mountain Europe

Glacier National Park

Montana, USA

The 'Crown of the Continent' — a wilderness of knife-edged peaks, hanging valleys, turquoise glacial lakes, and alpine meadows in the northern Rockies, crossed by one of the world's great mountain roads.

Mountain North America

Glen Coe

Lochaber, Scottish Highlands, Scotland, United Kingdom

Scotland's most dramatic glen — a deep, glacier-scoured valley walled by brooding peaks and knife-edge ridges, as famous for its beauty as for the 1692 massacre that darkens its name.

Mountain Europe

Golden Mountains of Altai

Altai Republic, southern Siberia

Where Siberia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and China meet — glaciated peaks above turquoise rivers and steppe, holding the most complete sequence of vegetation zones in the region.

Mountain Central Asia

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Southern Appalachians on the Tennessee–North Carolina border, USA, between Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina

Layer upon layer of forested Appalachian ridges, softened by the blue haze that gives the Smokies their name: 522,427 acres rising to 6,643 ft at Kuwohi, with some 1,900 black bears, 31 kinds of salamander and synchronous fireflies. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Mountain North America

Gros Morne

Newfoundland, Canada

A dramatic Newfoundland wilderness of landlocked fjords and bare orange mountains — where a slice of the Earth's mantle lies exposed at the surface, helping prove the theory of plate tectonics.

Mountain North America

Horton Plains & World's End

Central Highlands, Sri Lanka

A high, misty plateau of montane grassland and cloud forest in Sri Lanka's highlands, ending abruptly at World's End — a sheer escarpment that drops nearly 900 metres to the plains.

Mountain South Asia

Jebel Shams

Al Hajar Mountains, northern Oman

Oman's highest mountain, whose sheer rim plunges into the vast Wadi Ghul — the 'Grand Canyon of Arabia' — a mile-deep gorge of banded rock and vertiginous cliffs.

Mountain Middle East

Jirisan National Park

Sobaek Mountains, spanning South Jeolla, North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang provinces, South Korea, near Gurye, Namwon and Hamyang

South Korea's first national park and its largest mountain park: a vast massif of long, forested ridges crowned by Cheonwangbong at 1,915 m, the highest peak on the Korean mainland, and home to the country's restored wild Asiatic black bears.

Mountain East Asia

Jungfrau

Bernese Alps, Switzerland

One of the great peaks of the Bernese Alps at 4,158 metres — reached, uniquely, by a cog railway tunnelled through the mountain to the Jungfraujoch, the 'Top of Europe', overlooking the head of the Aletsch Glacier.

Mountain Europe

Kebnekaise

Kiruna Municipality, Norrbotten, Swedish Lapland

Sweden's highest mountain, whose summit changed places because the old one is made of ice — the glacier-capped south peak has melted below the bare rock of the north peak, and researchers measure the difference every summer.

Mountain Europe

Kirkjufell

Grundarfjörður, Snæfellsnes Peninsula, West Iceland

A steep, symmetrical 463-metre peak rising alone from the sea on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula — often called the most photographed mountain in Iceland, most famously with the small tiered waterfall Kirkjufellsfoss in the foreground.

Mountain Europe

Logar Valley

Solčava, Upper Savinja Valley, northern Slovenia, beneath the Kamnik-Savinja Alps

A glacier-carved alpine valley 7 km long in Slovenia's Kamnik-Savinja Alps, ringed by limestone peaks over 2,000 m and closed by the 90-m Rinka waterfall — a landscape park since 1987, with 43 recorded natural features.

Mountain Europe

Mavrovo National Park

Northwestern North Macedonia, between Gostivar, Debar and Kičevo, on the borders with Albania and Kosovo

North Macedonia's largest national park: a high country of beech and fir forest, the 25-km Radika gorge, a mountain reservoir lake with a half-drowned church, and Korab, the highest peak in the country at 2,764 m.

Mountain Europe

Mount Apo

Davao del Sur / Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines

The highest mountain in the Philippines at 2,954 metres — a potentially active volcano whose slopes hold sulfur vents, a summit boulder field, crater lakes, and one of the country's most important refuges for the Philippine eagle.

Mountain Southeast Asia

Mount Fitz Roy

Los Glaciares National Park, Santa Cruz, Argentina

A sheer granite spire on the Argentina–Chile border towering above El Chaltén in Los Glaciares National Park — one of the most dramatic and technically feared peaks on Earth, wreathed in the cloud the first peoples read as smoke.

Mountain Latin America

Mount Guiting-Guiting

Sibuyan Island, Romblon, MIMAROPA

A jagged, saw-toothed peak crowning Sibuyan — an island so ecologically intact it's called the 'Galápagos of Asia' — offering one of the most technical and rewarding climbs in the Philippines.

Mountain Southeast Asia

Mount Kazbek & Gergeti

Kazbegi, Greater Caucasus, Georgia

A glacier-clad 5,000-metre volcano in the Greater Caucasus, above which a lone medieval church stands on a green ridge — one of the most iconic mountain scenes in the Caucasus.

Mountain Europe

Mount Kenya

Central Kenya

Africa's second-highest peak — the eroded core of an ancient volcano, crowned with glaciers on the equator and ringed by bizarre giant plants found nowhere else.

Mountain Africa

Mount Kilimanjaro

Northern Tanzania

The highest mountain in Africa and the tallest free-standing mountain on Earth — a snow-capped volcanic giant rising alone from the savanna to 5,895 metres, climbable without technical gear yet crowned with vanishing equatorial glaciers.

Mountain Africa

Mount Kinabalu

Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia

The highest peak in Southeast Asia's island world — a granite giant on Borneo, ringed by one of the richest concentrations of plant life on Earth, from giant Rafflesia flowers to carnivorous pitcher plants.

Mountain Southeast Asia

Mount Olympus

Between Thessaly and Macedonia, near Litochoro, Greece

The highest mountain in Greece — a limestone massif of more than fifty peaks that climbs almost 2,900 metres within twenty kilometres of the Aegean shore, cut by deep gorges and protected as the country's first national park.

Mountain Europe

Mount Roraima

Canaima National Park, Venezuela

A vast, cloud-wrapped table mountain rising in sheer 400-metre cliffs above the jungle — a 'lost world' plateau of black rock, endemic plants, and waterfalls spilling into the void.

Mountain Latin America

Mount Ushba

Upper Svaneti, Greater Caucasus, Georgia

The twin-horned peak that dominates Georgian Svaneti — 4,710 metres of granite and hanging ice known as the Matterhorn of the Caucasus, and widely held to be the hardest serious climb in the range.

Mountain Europe

Pelister National Park

Baba Mountain, above Bitola, southwestern North Macedonia

North Macedonia's oldest national park, on Baba Mountain above Bitola: forests of the rare Macedonian pine, high granite ridges, and two glacial lakes known as Pelister's Eyes just below the 2,601-m summit.

Mountain Europe

Peneda-Gerês National Park

Northern Portugal, on the Spanish border

Portugal's only national park — a wild expanse of 300-million-year-old granite mountains, oak forest, peat bog, and plunging rivers in the far north, home to Iberian wolves, wild ponies, and roaming long-horned cattle.

Mountain Europe

Picos de Europa

Asturias, Cantabria & León, northern Spain

A compact range of sheer limestone peaks rising to 2,600 metres barely 20 kilometres from the Atlantic — glacier-carved gorges, karst towers, and Spain's first national park.

Mountain Europe

Rainbow Mountain (Vinicunca)

Cusco Region, Peruvian Andes

A high Andean ridge striped in bands of red, gold, green, and turquoise — mineral-stained sediments laid bare at over 5,000 metres, one of the most colourful mountains on Earth.

Mountain Latin America

Retezat National Park

Retezat Mountains, Hunedoara County, Southern Carpathians, Romania

Romania's first national park, declared in 1935 — sixty peaks above 2,300 metres, around eighty glacial lakes scattered between them, and some of the last untouched old-growth forest in Europe.

Mountain Europe

Rwenzori Mountains

Uganda–DR Congo border

The 'Mountains of the Moon' — Africa's highest range not born of volcanism, carrying equatorial glaciers above a surreal bog world of giant heathers and lobelias.

Mountain Africa

Seoraksan

Taebaek Mountains, Gangwon Province, South Korea, inland from Sokcho

South Korea's most dramatic mountains: about thirty granite peaks rising to Daecheongbong at 1,708 m, with the sheer dome of Ulsanbawi, deep forested valleys, and some of the country's most celebrated autumn colour.

Mountain East Asia

Table Mountain

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

The flat-topped sandstone massif that presides over Cape Town — a sheer-sided landmark often draped in a 'tablecloth' of cloud, and the heart of a plant kingdom so rich it is unique on Earth.

Mountain Africa

Tatra Mountains

Poland–Slovakia border

The highest range of the Carpathians — a compact alpine world of granite spires, glacial lakes, and deep valleys, home to bears, wolves, lynx, and the rare Tatra chamois.

Mountain Europe

The Asir Mountains

Asir Province, southwestern Saudi Arabia

A green, misty mountain range in Saudi Arabia's southwest — terraced highlands and juniper forests, cooled by monsoon cloud, that overturn every expectation of the desert kingdom.

Mountain Middle East

The Drakensberg

KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (bordering Lesotho)

South Africa's great basalt rampart — a UNESCO World Heritage range of soaring escarpment walls, plunging waterfalls and the world's richest gallery of San rock art, rising along the border with Lesotho.

Mountain Africa

The Fann Mountains

Sughd Province, western Tajikistan

About a hundred peaks in a compact block of the western Pamir-Alay, a dozen of them above 5,000 metres, with turquoise lakes dammed by landslides sitting under the walls.

Mountain Central Asia

The High Atlas & Mount Toubkal

High Atlas, near Imlil and Marrakesh, Morocco

The rugged spine of Morocco — a snow-topped range of bare rock and Berber villages rising south of Marrakesh to Jbel Toubkal, at 4,167 m the highest peak in North Africa and the Arab world.

Mountain Africa

The Pitons

Soufrière, Saint Lucia, Caribbean

Two dramatic volcanic spires rising straight from the Caribbean Sea — the twin cones of Gros Piton and Petit Piton, cloaked in rainforest, that have become the emblem of Saint Lucia.

Mountain North America

Triglav National Park

Julian Alps, north-western Slovenia, on the border with Italy and close to Austria

Slovenia's only national park: 840 km² of the eastern Julian Alps around Triglav (2,864 m), the country's highest peak, with Lake Bohinj, the Savica waterfall, glacier-carved valleys and high karst plateaus. Protected since 1924.

Mountain Europe

Yosemite Valley

Sierra Nevada, California, United States

A glacier-carved granite valley of sheer cliffs and thundering waterfalls in California's Sierra Nevada — home to the monoliths of El Capitan and Half Dome, and groves of giant sequoias, the largest trees on Earth.

Mountain North America

Yr Wyddfa & Eryri (Snowdonia)

Gwynedd, North Wales, United Kingdom

The rugged mountain heart of Wales — a national park of glacier-hewn peaks, glacial lakes and Welsh-speaking valleys crowned by Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), the highest mountain in England and Wales.

Mountain Europe