Perito Moreno Glacier

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Los Glaciares National Park, 1981); The Park Was Created In 1937 · El Calafate, Santa Cruz

The Perito Moreno glacier comes down off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and ends in a wall of blue-white ice about five kilometres wide and some seventy metres high above Lago Argentino. What makes it different from every other glacier you can drive to is how close you get: a peninsula faces the ice across a narrow channel, and a network of steel walkways lets you stand a few hundred metres from the face and watch towers of ice crack, lean and fall into the lake with a sound like artillery. You can wait for that for hours and people do. Boats run up to the face, and concessionaires take small groups onto the glacier itself with crampons. For decades it was famous as one of the few glaciers in the world that was not retreating, and every few years it dammed an arm of the lake until the water burst through; recent measurements suggest it has begun to thin. It is eighty kilometres from El Calafate and the most accessible great glacier on earth.

Ruta Provincial 11, Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, El Calafate, Santa Cruz, El Calafate, Santa Cruz, Z9405, Argentina

The park and the walkways open every day of the year in daylight hours; confirm the current opening and last-entry times. Boats to the glacier face and the ice-trekking trips run from spring to autumn and reduce or stop in the depths of winter. The road from El Calafate is paved throughout.

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