After driving through the dry landscape of Argentinian Patagonia we reached the massive Southern Peaks of The Andes at El Calefate, a tidy tourist town on Lago Argentino, that services the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Site, The Perito Moreno Glacier. The town itself has grown up in recent years and is full of outdoors shops, hostels and other shops that support the massive number of visitors that come to see the glacier. The town has a distinct alpine feel to it.

The Perito Moreno Glacier some fifty kilometres away is absolutely massive and is one of the few stable glaciers remaining in the world. A few days before our visit the glacier had advanced right across Lago Argentino creating a dam blocking the flow of water from the lake downstream. Eventually the pressure of the water building up behind the glacier creates a tunnel, which then collapses creating a massive surge of water downstream. The tunnel collapsed the night we arrived, and attracted thousands of visitors wanting to witness an event that happens every ten or so years.

We viewed the glacier from both a boat and also the viewing centre. The glacier forms a great “V” shape coming into Lago Argentina and at its highest is 80 to 90 metres high. The colour of the glacier is incredibly varied, in all shades of blue, some so bright you could only comprehend from some paint colour chart. The surface of the glacier is full of steep crevices and is continually moving.

The end of the glacier on our visit was very active with massive blocks of ice weighing several tonnes detonating of the end of the glacier and crashing into the lake to the sound of huge explosions. These blocks of ice then form huge icebergs that gently flow down the lake slowly melting.

Much of the ice at the bottom of the glacier is highly pressurised and de-oxygenated giving it in some lights the appearance of copper sulphate blue. Not only is the ice above water massive, there is even more ice below the surface. There are a few seams of sediment in the ice giving it the impression of sedimentary rock.

Date: 11/03/2018 to 13/03/2018