Patagonia - The Perito Moreno Glacier
Since catching our first glimpse of the Andes mountains while landing in Patagonia, our anticipation for this section of our trip had been building. We were getting the opportunity to see a glacier up close and in person. But first, we had to drive back across the country. The distant view of the Andes mountains and Lago Argentina were just as captivating as the first time we saw them.
After our long drive from Puerto Santa Cruz, we arrived hungry in El Calafate. We found a quirky little restaurant nearby that was willing to serve us lunch at 5 pm. It was a cabalgata, a place for horseback riding. Horses, dogs, cats and goats were laying out across the grounds; we suppose the animals enjoy a good Argentine siesta as well. The inside was decorated with puma skins, guanaco pelts, condor wings, and other oddities from the region. We did not get a menu, but the sole gentlemen wearing the host, waiter, and chef hats, detailed 3 options of things he could make. Starving, we ordered multiple of all three: empanadas, milanesa, and sorrentino. All are very Argentinian dishes and the empanadas were the best we have eaten. To our surprise they were filled with… guanaco!
The biggest reason we were excited to reroute out trip through Argentinian Patagonia was to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. It is one of 47 glaciers within Los Glaciares National Park and part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which contains a third of the world’s freshwater reserve. While many glaciers around the world are receding at a rapid pace as a result of climate change and global warming, the Perito Moreno Glacier seems to be in a steady state for now.
We were amped up to observe one of the world’s marvels. From what we read, we needed to get to the park early and expect big crowds. We pulled into the lot for the ticket sales at 8am, just as the park was opening. We parked so Jon could buy the tickets and the kids could wrestle in a nearby grassy area. A couple minutes later there was a stampede of people sprinting back to their vehicles, just like a scene from the movie, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World”. The kids sensed the urgency with Jon waving his hands at them to get in the car. They were in and buckled more quickly than ever before. Lauren was alarmed by the scene until she looked over at the smile on Jon’s face as he slid into the car. The park’s ticketing system was down; everyone was granted free entry to the park!
The drive to get to the Perito Moreno Glacier Visitor’s Center was long and winding. As we drove, the landscape changed from steppe to dense forest. As we continued to meander our way to our destination, views of the lake first started to appear, then we caught glimpses of the glacier through the breaks in the trees. Upon the final curves in the road, glacial ice floes were visible on the lake. We started to get a feel for the enormous scale of the glacier.
From our first vantage point high above the glacier, our collective breath was taken away. The Perito Moreno Glacier is massive in a scale that our photographs cannot portray. We continued to push the shutter buttons on our camera to try and find the best perspective, but it is impossible to truly record the experience.
The highest point at the front of the glacier is about 70 meters above the water surface, or the height of a 20-story building. The far north and south sides of the glacial face are around 40 meters above the water. The entire front of the glacier is about 5 km (3 mi) wide. At the front of the glacier, they believe the total depth of the ice to be just under 200 m. Glaciologists estimated that 8 km upstream of the glacier’s front face, at the pinch point between the mountains, the ice is as deep as 700 meters! At this narrow point on the glacier, they estimate that it moves 2m (6.6 ft) a day on average.
Notice the people in the foreground of this photo to give a perspective to the enormity of this glacier.
The top of the glacial ice is a system of sharp jagged points all crammed together to give the appearance of a single sheet. As you look closer, however, you will see the deep crevasses. From the sound of breaking ice that was not visible at the front, it was apparent that the chasms reached far below what we could see.
The trails to the viewpoints are constructed entirely of grated metal walkways. From the visitor’s center, you have to navigate your way through three different intertwining trails. While we spent a lot of time standing and staring, our calves were sore the next day from all the stairs!
Leading up to our visit, we had been teaching the children about glaciers. We learned about the characteristics of nature’s bulldozer; how this frozen river is ever moving, grinding, and pushing downhill. One of the more visible glacial actions is calving, where the pieces of the glacier break off from the main sections; something we did not expect to see happen. To our delight, we saw and heard a lot of glacial movement. First, you would see the chunk of ice calving, then a second later, you would hear the report like the crack of thunder. The sound of the calving ice could also be described as a huge rock skipping down a hard mountain slope followed by a splashing into the water below. Even what appeared in the distance to be small pieces of ice made noticeable sound. We checked our perspective and the scale of what we were viewing, and thought how those chunks of ice may have actually been the size of our compact car. We even happened to be filming during the largest calving event we saw that day!
This piece was on the south end of the glacier where the height was around 40m (132ft) above the water surface.
How long can you really sit and look at a glacier? Well, the entire experience of viewing the ice was absolutely mesmerizing. Just as we were thinking of moving on, we would hear the glacier move and our attention would be drawn to where the next piece might come crashing down. We would see ‘little’ pieces fall and think that something bigger must be coming. While the kids started getting antsy about 4 hours after our first viewpoint, we could have very easily spent the entire day taking in the sight. We posted up along the viewpoints, set out our picnic lunch, and enjoyed our afternoon yerba mate as we observed the slowly moving beast. We did our best to blend in to the native crowd. The culture of stopping to sip the mate is something we have tried to adopt more as our trip goes on. Slow down, enjoy the tranquility, take in the environment, and make the moment last.
The next day, we hung around our rental to catch up on homeschooling, personal business, and to add to our journals on what we had just experienced. The kids have gotten really creative in finding fun in the most simple things, such as filling old water bottles with rocks and water to only empty them out again. We welcomed the heavy work as we enjoyed the gorgeous view of Largo Argentina from our cabaña and cooked steaks on the parilla.
The following day, we were headed to the North Zone of Los Glacieres National Park, farther into the mountains to the town of El Chalten. This excursion would give us the opportunity to hike up for a clear view of the highest peaks in the area.