Perito Moreno Glacier – 19/11/10

After our visit to El Chalten we drove to Los Glaciares National Park to visit the spectacular glacier Perito Moreno.

The reason this glacier is so famous is that it flows down the mountain and reaches the mainland on the other side of the valley. This is important for two reasons. Firstly, it allows people like us to get close to the glacier. You can literally drive up and walk down along the causeways that have been built to get up close to the front of the glacier.

Secondly, the glacier flows slowly down the valley and when it hits the land it starts to buckle and rise. The lake made from the melting ice begins to flow through the rising glacier until it forms a tunnel or a bridge of ice. Then, every so often the tunnel collapses into the water creating a huge explosion of ice into the water. The whole process then starts again.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen very often. The last rupture was in 2004. Now, when we visited it, it was at the stage of the tunnel having been formed. This means that probably within the next 12 months, there will be another rupture!

Our first view of the glacier from far off.

Anyway, we parked up and started navigating the many walkways that have been built to enable visitors to get close. It was about 6 in the evening (it gets dark about 10pm here) and it was cold.

Wrapped up warm and looking cool infront of the glacier.

The front of the glacier fading off for miles into the background.

The glacier is so impressive! It’s so wide and as you walk down lower and lower, it becomes more and more imposing until all you can see is the front of the glacier. A huge wall of white and deep blue ice with a river of icy water flowing infront of it.

The front of the glacier below a mountain.

We first heard the glacier as were walking down. It was like a fireworks display or the sound of distant thunder. At this point we weren’t sure what was causing this sound.

We eventually got the lower balcony which had the closes view of the front wall. There was nobody down there except us. After taking some photos of the impressive sight we were about to head back up. A few bits of ice fell then fell from the wall into the river below, it sounded like small fireworks going off.

I decided to film some of it and then suddenly a big block of ice fell in. It’s not as impressive on this camera as it fails to capture the booming sound but here it is nonetheless:

Hearing more and more creaks and cracks in the ice from inside the glacier we decided to stay another ten minutes.

Another this time larger block of ice fell into the water but I missed it on the camera. So I started filming and then this suddenly happened:

Heidi and I were in hysterics as you can hear. It was so impressive!

It calmed down but then again, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!! The smaller cave ruptured and caved in! There was a huge explosion of ice which I just about managed to film. WOw, not everyone gets to see this! It wasn’t the full rupture of 2004 but it was a mini version and it was hugely impressive!

The arrow points to the tunnel of ice before the rupture. You can see water flowing underneath.

The tunnel filled with ice after the it collapsed.

The glacier was spectacular! One of our favourite moments so far.

You can also do hikes on top of the glacier but its quite expensive and we did a simialr thing on Franz Joseph glacier in New Zealand.

A brilliant day!!!!