Porito Moreno

Patagonia...Its pretty damn nice! As you can see El Calafate is set in beautiful surroundings. The town itself has echoes of a Swiss alpine resort and it was easy to just wander the outskirts of town admiring the scenery and horses.

01 The roads of Patagonia

On the second day i went to the Porito Moreno Glaciar which is set in the national Glaciar park. The route up to the glacier has some stunning scenery and there are quite a few different birds the most Impressive of which is the giant Condor with it 3 meter wing span. The thing that makes this glacier unique and important is that its the most stable glacier in the world. As you probably know most glaciers around the world are receding due to climate change and to their natural cycle. The Porito Moreno glacier front wall has remained in the same position since about 1914 and this is what makes it unique. This means as the front of glacier moves and sheds the ice the movement at the back of the glacier is equal to this, so in basic terms the input is the same as the output. There is only one glacier that is increasing in the world and that is some where in Chile (not sure of the name).

02 Beautiful Lake

Its a pretty amazing place to spend a day out and we did quite a bit of trekking around the glacier. Its incredibly loud when the ice comes crashing down off the front wall it sounds like claps of thunder! the front wall moves about 30cm forward per day and this is what causes the huge chunks of ice to come crashing into the water. Its pretty hard to capture the exact moment when this happens but if you look closely at a sequence of photos i took you can see 3 pics where i just caught a big chunk hitting the water and then the wave spreading out after.

After this spectacular day i went back to El Calefate and relaxed for the evening ready to catch an early morning bus to El Chaltan to see the impressive mount Fitz Roy.

03Beautiful Lake

04 Beautiful Lake

05 Me in front of the porito moreno Glaciar

06 Glaciar

07 Glaciar

08 Glaciar

09 Glaciar

10 Glaciar

11 Glaciar

12 Glaciar

13 Glaciar

14 Glaciar

15 Glaciar

16 Glaciar

17 Sunset horses in El Calefate

18 Sunset horses in El Calefate

19 Sunset horses in El Calefate

20 El Calafate