Patagonia - Perito Moreno Glacier

To give ourselves a bit of a rest between the Fitz Roy hiking and our longer Torres del Paine trek, we decided to hang out for a couple of nights in El Calafate and visit the Perito Moreno glacier. The glacier trip had all the things we dislike about over popular tourist attractions - busloads of visitors and expensive entry fees, transportation, food and gift concessions. Of course there are very good reasons the Perito Moreno glacier is so popular. It is one on the most active and accessible glaciers on the planet and was definitely worth putting up with the crowds and high costs.

The view of the glacier from the parking lot.

El Calafate is on Lago Argentina - the largest in the country - and is located between El Chalten and Torres del Paine. That strategic position as well at its proximity to the glacier make it a very popular destination. I think every single person we met in Patagonia had already been to El Calafate or was planning to visit. All those tourists inevitably made El Calafate a less desirable place for us full of expensive accommodations and restaurants with tour companies and gift shops up and down the main street. Still, it's almost impossible not to stop off there, so we decided to make the best of it.

The Perito Moreno glacier is about fifteen kms long, five kms wide and sixty metres high at the snout of the glacier. A peninsula of land juts out  to the leading face of the glacier and the national park has built almost four kms of walkways and viewing platforms there for visitors. In a world of retreating glaciers, Perito Moreno is an anomoly. It advances across the narrow Rico Arm of Lago Argentina an average of two metres a day. It occasionally blocks the lake completely, and regularly calves building sized icebergs into the channel directly in front of the viewing platforms.

Walkways and viewing platforms visible as you
start to head down to the glacier.

A better view of the ice that has calved
off the glacier.

We spent about five hours at the glacier, and with the exception of a short break for lunch, we spent the whole time on the viewing platforms mesmerised by the constant movement of the ice. It creaked and groaned incessantly. Streams of crushed ice poured out of cracks in the glacier and small pieces of ice broke off regularly. When ice powder and small pieces continued dropping from an area for ten or fifteen minutes, it was usually a sign of something big coming.

Large viewing platforms.

In the time we were there, about eight large icebergs calved off the glacier. Some were well over a hundred feet high, and perhaps fifty feet wide and twenty feet thick. The calving was accompanied by thunderous cracks, and then huge splashes and mini tidal waves as they dropped into the water below. It may have been expensive and a little crowded for our tastes, but none of that mattered as we were thrilled by the glacier putting on a show for us.

Another view up the glacier.

A closer look.

I wasn't disappointed to leave El Calafate, but was certainly happy that we had stopped to visit Perito Moreno on our way through. Next up was a border crossing back into Chile to visit Puerto Natales and nearby Parque Nacional Torres del Paine.