Glaciar Perito Moreno under the rain
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
294
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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El Calafate,
Argentina
Monday, March 19, 2007
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The departure time was set for 7.30, in order to see the countryside under the morning sun... except that it was raining, so we went back to bed, and eventually set off at around 10.
We had rented the car the evening before, and bought the food for the picnic too, so there I was with Milva and Lionel and Meg, an american girl we had recruited for the occasion.
The National Park Los Glaciares is some 70 km from El Calafate, and as we were approaching we could see the clouds hanging above the peaks and the glaciers.
As the guide had told us the day before in the boat, there is a good reason for the glaciers to be there: the weather is crap: cold and with lots of precipitation.
As we reached the Peninsula de Magallanes, we were under the rain. The peinisula protrudes into Lago Argentino. The road follows the southern coast of the peninsula, along the milky green waters of Brazo Rico (part of Lago Argentino). At a turn of the road, appeared the southern wall of the glacier. We reached the car park, and 30 meters further was the first viewing platform, overlooking the glacier, allowing to see its face, sides, and surface.
The glacier starts 14 km further, on the Campo de Hielo Patagonico: the Patagonian Ice Field, which covers a large part of the patagonian Andes in Chile and Argentina. It is one of the largest freshwater reserves on earth, and flows down into Parque Nacional Los Glaciares into some 360 glaciers. And there are much more on the Chilean side.
On the southwestern tip of the peninsula Magallanes, the Glaciar Perito Moreno flows down and marks the separation between BrazoRico, from where the water arrives, and Canal de los Tempanos, through where the water flows into the main body of Lago Argentino.
The glacier face is 5km wide, with an arrowhead shape, and therefore it falls into the Brazo Norte and in the Canal de los Tempanos, and between the two it comes very close to the Peninsula Magallanes.
Every once in a while (4 to 8 years), the glaciers reaches the peninsula, blocking the water flow from brazo norte to the canal, and thus acting like a dam. But the water pressure creates a hole under the ice, which grows bigger and forms and arch, which eventually collapses into the water, and that must be something. The last time it happened was in 2004, and on the peninsula still remained the wall of the arch.
The wall was some 60m high, but from afar you can't really realize its size. When we saw some boats in the water it gave us a better reference. But anyway the 5km wide, 60m high wall of ice, is something hard to describe, it is like a mountain. And even more impressive,was to see the surface of the glacier, 4km wide, an 14 km long, coming down a gentle slope from the mountains. It is really like a huge river, more or less flat as it follows the profile of the rock bed, flattening it at the same time. The surface is made of ice peaks, with white and blue colors, all rising up like wild thick hair. Brown lines in the middle of the glacier come from lateral moraines that were included in between two upstream glaciers.
The face of the glacier shows the peaks, but also the compressed hard ice underneath. It includes parts of horizontal moraine, as parts of the glaciers went onto the top of one another.
The colors on the face ranged from white to blue too. White is the normal color of ice once its surface starts to melt under the influence of sun and wind. But when ice blocks fall intothe water, they reveal raw ice, which appears blue.
The whole view is incredible, unique, such vastness overwhelming the senses. You feel small, you see gigantism, you feel the elements (especially since it was rainy and windy), and the noise!
Everytime a tiny piece of ice (it looked tiny, but usually it would be a least a meter large piece of ice) fell, it hit the ice bits floating on the surface, and that resulted in a very loud bang. You had to see it and hear it, and if you only heard it it was too late to see it.
And then there were big big chunks falling. The glacier moves forward on average 40 cm on the sides and 2m at the center ... per day!
We saw a portion of wall, maybe 20m wide and 5 meters thick, falling in the water, in a big splash, creating a big wave.
We stayed there for the whole afternoon, sheltering in the car when the rain was too heavy. We had intended to go hiking in another part of the park, but we prefered staying in case we could get a ray of sun. That did not happen, so we did not take great pictures, but we spent hours just admiring the glacier, watching its details, expecting a part of the wall to fall into the water.
We had to head back at some point, which was decided by Meg having to catch a bus. As soon as we got out of the National Park, ther were no more clouds and no more rain, although the wind was still pretty strong. The country side was impressive, dressed in beautiful colors.
That microclimate shitty weather is the key to the existence of the glaciers, it is incredibly localized.
Back to the hostel, we dropped Meg who had to take her bus to El Chalten, and we walked a few hundred meters out, to Laguna Nimez, a bird reserve where we spent more than an hour, in the wind and under the setting sun, watching geeses and ducks and pink flamingos and harriers who nested there, and many other birds. There were also horses and cows, and two stupid dogs who had followed us and were chasing the birds.
Patagonia is just overwhelming, all the people open to the beauty and power and marvel of nature are stunned here, you can't compare things anymore, every moment and every place is an enchantment, a unique place, a special moment. I can't really translate that into words, I wish everyone could come here and see by themselves. Or rather, I wish that the rest of our planet was as little touched by the human hand.
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Comments
Great post..
hey PF, great piece of writing there with a lot of interesting information to read..
You've settled my mind if I am doing the right thing in traveling down there..
K..