Mon 5 Dec- Wed 7 December
Monday morning we hopped on a bus and made the 6 hour journey across the border to
El Calafate, Argentina to visit Perito Moreno Glacier. Tuesday morning we set out from the town of
El Calafate at
9am and arrived in
Argentina’s
Los Glaciares National Park which covers around
600,000 hectares and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The glacier site is very well maintained and extremely accessible- it was a Disney-like system of buses and transfers and viewpoints. Ally and I agreed it was slightly less exciting than having a panoramic view of glacier grey open up in front of us as we crested a small ridge after four hours of hiking in Torres del Paine.
What makes Perito Moreno worthy of a visit is not just its sheer size (250sq.km), but from the main area we were able to watch massive chunks of the glacier come tumbling off and crashing 60m into the icy water below. The glacier frontage stretches 5km across and stands 60m high- but nearly 110m of glacier sits below the water’s surface.
Perito Moreno is one of
Patagonia’s largest glaciers and is also the world’s third largest reserve of fresh water. Why not go for a stroll on top?
We took a twenty minute boat ride toward the edge of the glacier and hopped off on a nearby shore. During the briefing, we learned that Perito Moreno is a stable glacier, accumulating ice at the same rate at which it is shed at the front. It is one of the few stable glaciers in the world.
With crampons strapped on, not a splinter of sun in sight, and rain pelting down with a fury, we stepped out onto this monstrous ice field.
The first 20minutes were spent protecting cameras from the rain and keeping ourselves steady in the gusty wind. It wasn’t long before we were soaked and getting very chilly. Ally had injured her knee toward the end of the “W” hike and the weighty crampons on her feet weren’t helping her mobility. Despite the traction of the crampon, the icy descents were shaky at best and Ally had to turn back to keep from injuring her knee further. At this point my waterproof layers had utterly failed their waterproof test and the winds were turning me into a new ice formation. It wasn’t looking like we would last the scheduled 1.5hrs of hiking atop the glacier. Our guide insisted that if we kept wishing “hard enough,” the sun would come out.
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| Smoggy camera lense thanks to all of the rain |
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| when the sun finally did come out |
Good wishers we were. Not long after the sun broke through and we were able to hike the glacier under sparkling sunlight; highlighting the crystal blues and pristine whiteness of the ice formations. To my elation the hike was capped off with a glass (or three) of 12 year old whiskey served over 300 year old glacial ice, paired with an indulgent dolce de leche chocolate cake. Don’t worry, I plan to bring oodles of these treats home.
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| the ice bar |
Today we caught a bus back to Puerto Natales where we fly on to
Santiago to spend our final few days in
Chile back with our ESD compadres.
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