The 15-Story Ice Wall

Oh yeah, and it´s 3 miles wide and 30 kilometers deep.



Welcome to Glacier Perito Moreno, one of hundreds located in Parque Nacional Los Glaciers in Argentina. From El Calafate, which is the most frightening little tourist town on earth in my opinion, we made a day trip up to the Andes to see the spectacles of some of the lowest lying (speaking in terms of altitude) glaciers in the world. These all stem from the Patagonian Ice Field, which is the the 3rd largest ice sheet in the world - trailing only to Antarctica and Greenland. The Patagonian Ice Field is and has been the source of many border problems between Argentina and Chile because both countries want to claim the gigantic source of fresh water (although in solid form).



My first experience with the ice monsters came several days earlier in Torres del Paine when we camped near Glacier Grey. I spent several hours one evening trying to make my way down to the glacier by way of a treacherous rock slide, just to find out later that I had wasted time, energy and good lighting conditions (for photos) when there was a great spot about 2 minutes from our campsite on a well-marked trail. Ahhhh, what an idiot. Meaghan laughed her ass off at my misfortune and/or stupidity.

But Glacier Grey and Perito Moreno are hard to compare. It´s actually almost impossible to compare anything with a 60 meter face of ice that calves (breaks off) less than a kilometer in front of you.



A tiny piece, which could have been the size of an SUV, made an incredible explosion sound. And the effect of seeing the equivalent of a 10-story building topple off the side and cause a small tsunami is hard to explain. It was an experience I will not soon forget. There were several calves of immense sizes. The tons of tourists along the balconies overlooking the glacier would cheer when a good piece fell. It was amazing that hundreds of people could be almost silent as they watched ice with rapt attention. The multi-level tour boat looked like nothing next to the glacier. Perito Moreno (the 3rd largest in PN Los Glaciers) is larger than Buenos Aires in surface area. Buenos Aires has roughly 12 or 13 million inhabitants, far larger than New York. Hope that helps as a reference point. It was unfortunate that we didn´t have a reference point or scale comparison other than the boat from where we were because it was impossible to tell the size of some things.





This is about a 12-story building or so crashing down. The crack of the ice is sensational and unbelievably loud. The initial wave it threw was probably over 100 meters. And then the tsunami-esque entension rippled along the length of the glacial face, sometimes causing other calvings.











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We´re currently blowing time until we get on a bus at 3 am. We have a roughly 33 hours worth of bus riding to take us to Bariloche in the Argentine lakes district. We´re hoping to then cross to Chile and camp again for a night or two before I try to book it back to Santiago. It´s not looking so great that I will be back in time for classes on Monday!

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This is Glacier Grey in PN Torres del Paine. Not nearly as tall as Perito Moreno, but equally expansive, reaching into the Andes as far as the eye can see for tens of kilometers. We camped near it and could hear it throghout the night.