Patagonia – El Calafate

Founded in 1927 as a frontier town and named after a tasty, indigenous berry that if eaten is believed to guarantee your return to Patagonia, El Calafate has become the hub for Argentina’s southern Patagonian region.  Set on the southern shore of Argentino Lake, this ever-growing boomtown enjoys a microclimate much milder than the rest of the region.  And just 80 kilometers west in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is the area’s biggest drawl, the spectacular Perito Moreno Glacier. 

Named after a 19^th century explorer, this glacier is the third largest in Argentina and is roughly the size of Buenos Aires City at 254 square kilometers.  To put that into perspective, it stretches 19 miles in length, 3.1 miles in width and from the surface of the water, stands 240 feet tall.  It is one of forty-eight glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the world’s third largest freshwater reserve located in the Andes system that straddles Chile and Argentina.

While global warming is a major concern and contributes to other glaciers around the world reducing in size, Perito Moreno has remained stable from year to year.  It continues to advance across Lago Argentino towards the peninsula, gaining large cracks and crevasses in the process.  This allows us to witness nature’s ultimate ice show as these cracks widen and huge chunks break off the glacier’s front face crashing into the water below with a thunderous roar.  I never imagined ice breaking could be so fascinating… but turns out, it is!

On our first day in town, we headed west to see this magnificent glacier in person and the sun was shining as El Calafate faded away in the rear view.  But an hour later as we pulled into Los Glaciares National Park, it was rainy and windy with gray clouds blanketing the sky.  We tried not to let the gloomy weather damper our experience as we boarded our boat cruise and took off towards the glacier’s southern face.  As we got closer, we decided it was worth the rain pelting our faces to be outside on the deck for the best views.  Being on the water really gives you a frame of reference for how tall this glacier stands.  And we had an opportunity to hold a piece of glacial ice that had broken off the southern face.  It’s just ice, but think how long it has been since this was in liquid form… pretty cool!

The walkways and viewing platforms provide different perspectives, all of which really emphasize how vast this glacier is.  But the rainy weather definitely impacted our visibility, as this giant block of ice just seemed to disappear into the thick cloud cover. 

Luckily this wasn’t our only visit while we were here and we had much better weather the second time around.  A group of us booked the Big Ice Adventure with Hielo y Adventura and before we hiked on the glacier, we had some free time back at the viewing platforms. 

All of us were completely blown away by the gift nature delivered to make up for the weather the day before… a perfect rainbow arching the width of the glacier.  It was one of the most spectacular scenes I’ve witnessed.  And with clear skies, we could see the glacier stretching all the way to the horizon.

After an hour of taking in these magnificent views, we crossed the lake by boat and hiked an hour along the glacier’s southern edge to get to a point where we could easily access the surface.  The guides helped us secure our crampons and BOOM… We were officially walking on the top of Perito Moreno Glacier. 

We broke into small groups, each with two guides, as we set off to explore.  There’s no set trail to follow and the guides navigated us around crevices and flowing water that had melted off the glacier’s surface as we trekked toward the interior.  We found a spot slightly protected from the whipping wind to sit on the ice and enjoy our packed lunch. 

For three and a half hours we explored the corners of this spectacular glacier gaining an even better idea of it’s size and depth.  It was yet another reminder that we are so tiny in comparison to Mother Nature.  This was by far one of life’s top experiences… a day I’ll never forget. 

After seeing a beautiful cave and jumping over wide streams, we arrived back at the access point, shedded our crampons and hiked the hour back to the edge of Lago Argentino.  On the boat ride across the lake, we were served whiskey on glacial ice.  Now that’s a solid reward for our challenging trek… Cheers!

With just two full days in El Calafate, we didn’t have much time to explore the town itself, but a walk along the main street proved that El Calafate has much to offer in the way of restaurants, bars and boutique shopping.  A little more time to explore would have been nice, but that rainbow over Perito Moreno Glacier more than compensated for anything else our time here lacked.