Perito Moreno Glacier
Saturday–Sunday November 17–18, 2007
After a three hour flight from Buenos Aires, we arrived at El Calafate on the shore of Lago Argentina. Our drive to the Glaciers National Park, a World Heritage site, took a bit over an hour. The lake is currently divided in two, because the Perito Moreno glacier has surged across a narrows and blocked the flow of water from one arm to the other. This glacier is not receding due to global warming.
The satellite view of the map below shows the color of the water and ice.
This is a part of the main body of the lake. The weather was not too bad, in the low 50s and with a moderate wind. Except for the time it snowed.
This is the blocked arm of the lake. The lake level currently is about 10 feet higher on this arm than in the main body. At times the water has been much higher—see the bathtub ring along the shore. Eventually the water will punch through the glacier and the levels will equalize.
This is the Perito Moreno glacier seen from the blocked arm of the lake. It is not an easy photographic subject—it is really bright. The scale is a bit hard to convey, but it is several miles across and the face of it is at least as high as a ten story building. The glacier goes back up into the mountains about 20 miles.
We took boat tours on both sides of the lake to get close to the glacier.
The Park has a walkway allowing visitors to get even closer to the north face of the glacier. It is not quiet here, with frequent pops and banging sounds coming from the glacier, which is moving about 6 feet a day. The ice that divides the lake is on the left side of this picture.
This photo shows ice that has broken off of the glacier in the past day or two. Some of these ice pieces are larger than locomotives. They make a roaring noise when they fall.
The Park also allows visitors to put on crampons, and with guides, to walk on the glacier. The size of the glacier may be grasped by looking at the middle of this photo, which shows a group of hikers climbing up and to the right. They are not ants. We did this activity on our second day.
On the lake, above the shadow cast by a cloud, there is a motor boat carrying about 70 passengers. We took the boat trip our first day.
The glacier has running water—creeks—on it and displays many different shades of blue.
Next—back to the domestic airport at Buenos Aires, a quick trip across the Estuary to Colonia, Uruguay.
