After our stop in El Calafate, we continued west into the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and onto the Peninsula de Magallanes, where we checked into Hosteria los Notros (owned by the Kirchners, natch). The peninsula is surrounded by water, Brazo de los Tempanos to the north and Brazo Rico to the south, both arms of the large Lago Argentina to the east. The two brazos are connected by a narrow channel between the peninsula and Glaciar Perito Moreno. The glacier face is three miles wide and about 250 feet high. It advances on a 1-10 year cycle, finally reaching the peninsula and blocking off Brazo Rico, which then rises as much as 100 feet. Eventually the water undercuts the glacier and erodes a drain hole through to Brazo de los Tempanos. As the upper lake drains, the drain hole enlarges to form a big arch, and when the arch collapses (a spectacular and widely anticipated event), the glacier is separated from the peninsula and the whole process begins anew. Perito Moreno is one of the only advancing glaciers in Patagonia; most others are retreating, some by dozens of meters per year. There's a map at the Los Glaciares web site (click inside the brackets to zoom in).
While we watched, many small icebergs calved from the glacier and splashed into the lake, making an eerie crack followed by a splash. In one case I was able to capture a series of photos of a large calf, which you can see patched together in a video below. The Wikipedia page on iceberg calving has a sequence taken at Perito Moreno.
Photo galleries: in the photo galleries below, you may see captions by mousing over the small photos and see each full-size image by clicking on the small one.
While we watched, many small icebergs calved from the glacier and splashed into the lake, making an eerie crack followed by a splash. In one case I was able to capture a series of photos of a large calf, which you can see patched together in a video below. The Wikipedia page on iceberg calving has a sequence taken at Perito Moreno.
Photo galleries: in the photo galleries below, you may see captions by mousing over the small photos and see each full-size image by clicking on the small one.
Iceberg Calving Sequence
In most instances of icebergs calving, we heard a crack and turned just in time to see (and photograph) the splash. In one case, however, a small piece of ice dropping got our attention and we saw that a crack near the top of the glacier face was widening. I began shooting pictures as quickly as possible (Nikon D40, 90 mm focal length, approx. 1 frame/sec). The two videos at right (one fast, one slow) were patched together in iMovie from the 32 frames that I shot. Move your cursor off the video frame to make the control bar go away.
This photo shows the aftermath three minutes later:
This photo shows the aftermath three minutes later:
All 32 frames are also shown below in a larger format.
Perito Moreno iceberg calving sequence—fast (0.25 sec)
Perito Moreno iceberg calving sequence—slow (0.4 sec)
A walk on the glacier
The next day, February 15th, we boarded a small boat, toured the face of the glacier, and disembarked near the southern edge. After meeting our guide and donning crampons, we spent a bit over an hour tramping around on the glacier--it was fascinating!
The next day, February 16th, we had a long transit by van to the Chilean border and on to Torres del Paine National Park. Our Argentine driver was not allowed to take us into Chile and the Chilean driver was prohibited from picking us up in Argentina, so we unloaded one van at the border and schlepped our baggage to the other one. The Argentine border guards made us wait over an hour before granting permission to leave their country. The policy of each country is apparently to harass the other country and make traveling across the border as difficult as possible for tourists.
