“With a depth of nearly 9,000 ft (2,743 m), the GREAT GORGE in Alaska’s Ruth Glacier is deeper than the Grand Canyon.”

National Geographic Kids, 5,000 Awesome Facts

The Alaska Gorge is settled in Ruth’s Glacier at a depth of 9,000 feet, with the ice on the sides almost 3,800 feet thick in some places. Granite cliffs line the sides, and a river flows through it that is 1 mile wide and about 10 miles long. The tips of the granite cliffs to the bottom of Ruth Glacier exceeds the depth of the Grand Canyon, which is 6,093 feet deep.

The Ruth Glacier moves 3 feet every day.

The Grand Canyon also has a river flowing through, and is 18 miles wide, and 277 miles long!

But I wasn’t quite sure what was the difference is between a gorge or a canyon. I looked up “canyon” in the Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, the actual book(!), and it defines canyon as “a deep narrow valley with precipitous sides often with a stream flowing through.”

A gorge is defined as “A narrow passage.” That doesn’t give me much to go on so I looked up what the difference is on http://www.worldatlas.com, and it says that lava flows and water implicate gorges, whereas erosion and weathering are the formation of canyons. I believe that gorges are narrower than canyons.

It seems to me that the Alaska Gorge and the Grand Canyon are somewhat similar as they both have water going through them, yet the Grand Canyon is wider. Swimming is not really encouraged in both.

The Alaska Gorge

The Grand Canyon

Ruth’s Glacier