Moreno Glacier

The ferry to the glacier on a drizzly morning.

Our first view. See the boat for scale!

Not a very nice morning for such a beautiful place.

We were going ice trekking. This is the group before us.

So we got kitted up with crampons.

And away we went.

Our guide describing the features of the glacier.

The views were spectacular!

We all got a shot of whiskey at the end of the two hour trek.

John Travolta lives!

A Southern crested caracara, a predatory bird.

In the afternoon the sun came out! What a difference!

Immense sheet of ice and gorgeous colour.

Doesn't it make you want to try to climb it?!?

Tuesday, November 19^th.

Today we were off to see the Moreno Glacier. We were picked up at 7:30 on a gloomy, drizzly day, the first for a long time. The van picked up other people at other hotels before taking us to a large coach where we boarded with still other people. I remember the other day our guide told us the meaning of the word Patogonia, which was giant bigfooted people. Interestingly, the travel company here is called ‘Gigantes Patagones’ and their logo is a big foot.

We drove for an hour and half on the coach to a boat launch where we boarded a ferry to take us to the other side of the river. On the way we sailed past the front of this massive glacier. It is huge! But this is only part of the ice field that is farther up the mountain. It is the third largest sheet of ice in the world, behind only Antarctica and Greenland. Up in the Andes lots of snow falls and the weight of it creates ice, hence the glacier and the continued weight and pull of gravity causes it to ‘flow’ down the mountain valleys. There are three major glaciers that come down the mountain from this ice field, and Moreno is the smallest of the three! At the highest part of the face at the river it is 70 metres tall! In 1986 it was 836 km2 and by 2011 it had shrunk to 750 km2, so like glaciers worldwide it is melting.

When we docked, we were met by a couple of guides, one for Spanish speakers and one for English speakers. We walked up to the chalet area to leave our lunches and get outfitted with crampons for our ice walk. Once we were ready to go, we walked on the glacier for a couple of hours. It is an amazing feeling walking on that much ice. The surface is granular as this glacier is in a temperate zone and the surface is always melting. Glaciers are inherently dangerous because they are on the move. The ice shifts and crevasses form, which no one wants to fall into. The features on the ice were beautiful and the blue colours gorgeous. At the end of the walk they served us all a shot of whiskey.

When we finished the trek, we returned our crampons and sat and had our provided box lunch with the glacier as our view. Then we took the ferry back across the river to the bus which drove us for a half hour to another viewpoint. Meanwhile the drizzle had stopped, the skies had cleared and the sun came out! This viewpoint had many trails and levels from which to admire the glacier. In the sun it was even more stunning.

After an hour there we drove back to El Calafate and our hotel. We had some time to make use of the pool, then we got organized and took the hotel shuttle to town. We walked to the Casimiro restaurant for our included dinner. This time the set menu had choices and we had steak and potatoes. Then shuttled back to the hotel for the night.