Ruth Glacier is a

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

Denali National Park and Preserve Denali National Park and Preserve, formerly known as Mount McKinley National Park, is an American national park and preserve located in Interior Alaska, centered on Denali, the highest mountain in North America. The park and contiguous preserve ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. Its upper reaches are approximately 3 vertical miles below the summit of

Denali Denali (; also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the th ...

. The glacier's "Great Gorge" is one mile wide, and drops almost 2,000 feet over 10 miles, with

crevasse A crevasse is a deep crack, that forms in a glacier or ice sheet that can be a few inches across to over 40 feet. Crevasses form as a result of the movement and resulting stress associated with the shear stress generated when two semi-rigid pie ...

s along the surface. Above the surface on both sides are 4,900-foot

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

cliffs. From the top of the cliffs to the bottom of the glacier is a height exceeding that of the Grand Canyon. Ruth Glacier moves at a rate of three feet per day and was measured to be 4,000 feet thick in 1983. Surrounding the Ruth Gorge are many mountains of the

Alaska Range The Alaska Range is a relatively narrow, 600-mile-long (950 km) mountain range in the southcentral region of the U.S. state of Alaska, from Lake Clark at its southwest endSources differ as to the exact delineation of the Alaska Range. ThBoar ...

, including the

Mooses Tooth The Moose's Tooth (or simply Moose's Tooth, Mooses Tooth) is a rock peak on the east side of the Ruth Glacier, Ruth Gorge in the Central Alaska Range, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Denali. Despite its relatively low elevation, it is a diffic ...

, Mount Dickey,

Mount Bradley Mount Bradley () is a pyramidal peak, high, at the southeast end of a ridge descending from Detroit Plateau, surmounting Znepole Ice Piedmont to the east and Dreatin Glacier to the southwest. The peak is southwest of Mount Reece in the sout ...

, Mount Wake, Mount Johnson, and London Tower with highly technical

ice Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...

and rock climbs on their faces.

History

In 1903, the glacier was explored by physician and ethnographer

Frederick Cook Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940) was an American explorer, physician, and ethnographer who claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. That was nearly a year before Robert Peary, who similarly clai ...

, who named it after his youngest daughter.

References

Glaciers of Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska Glaciers of Denali National Park and Preserve Denali Glaciers of Alaska {{Alaska-glacier-stub

History

See also

References