It is one of Argentina's tourism icons.
When to get there:
You can travel any time of year, however it is recommended to be between September and May, because the temperatures are more lenient and more housing options.
Weather:
The climate is dry during the summer, the days are cool and cold nights, while in winter the cold was intense, with a maximum temperature of 17º C and a minimum of -12º C.
How to get there:
By land: From Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz Province, Provincial Route Nº 5, National Route N º 40 Provincial Route Nº 23. From Bariloche, Black River, National Road Nº 40 and Route Nº 23. By air: Flights from Buenos Aires-Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, Córdoba, Bariloche, Ushuaia, etc., El Calafate International Airport.
History
The rupture processes, depending on the year, happen more or less regularly. According to historical records, in 1900 the glacier was 750 meters far from the Magallanes Peninsula. It advanced until in 1971 it reached the coast for the first time. At that time it did not break but a channel opened which allowed the water to drain. Observations until 1940 were not thoroughly documented –the place was not inhabited – and in February that year the first rupture happened. Two years later the second rupture happened and after that they continued happening every two or four years, always during the summer, until this year. During the XX Century there were about twenty ruptures. But after the one in 1988 there was a pause of 16 years. From that moment the glacier remained joined to the peninsula in a way which allows the water to run. For that reason the Perito Moreno did not break for so long, until in March 2004 a rupture happened. It was a sunny day and the event was broadcast all around the world. The rupture occurred after 75 hours of the process having started, when the dike broke and giant blocks of ice started to fall in a succession of explosions. The noise echoed in the mountains and also in the observers bones. One after the other, walls as high as a 20 storey building fell, until the tunnel resisted no longer. At 7.10 p.m. on 14th March, observers held their breath and “the world” collapsed.
Two years later, the bridge formed again and on the 10th March 2006 the whole process happened again. During many days the show advanced and the final rupture seemed to be imminent in front of thousands of people who went to the place until there was no more space in the park. Some of them even slept in the place in spite of the cold weather. TV cammeras of many countries were ready. They recorded every ice fall. But on the 14th March the sun set behind the mountains and at 10.45 pm -- few people watching and a full moon--, the rupture happened when it was dark. Only a few cameras could record the sound of the explosion.
The visit
The first sight of the Perito Moreno through the cars window is like a succession of white lightning that appear one after the other behind the trees. That image still unclear of the sky flashes beautifully and vanishes instantly, as every moment of perfection does. When you leave the car and get to the footbridges you get the second impression. The glacier shows it complete 4 km front and behind it the body moves like an ice snake and reaches the bottom of a big valley.
But something curious happens the first time you stand in front of the glacier. Every experienced traveler gets to the conclusion that pictures are not accurate. The Eiffel Tower was not as high as it seemed, and the grass on the English countryside is not as green as in the books, and the Forbidden City of Peking was not as great as shown in Bertolucci’s movie. It happens that, generally, a good photograph is taken because the photographer is like an artist who recreates reality and makes it even more beautiful, to the point of making people disappointed when they finally visit the place. Strangely, however, exactly the opposite happens with the Glacier Perito Moreno.
On the one hand, the front of the Glacier is so wide and difficult to compare with anything around, that in a picture you can not obtain an appropriate idea of its real size. The second reason why the Glacier is particularly impossible to be shown in a picture is because the landscape has lots of sounds and movement. In the Perito Moreno, the sights can be observed without paying much attention until a loud explosion precedes (sic) the falling of a big block of ice from the glacier front. This new ice floe falls as in slow motion, sinks and comes to the surface again to flow to the right following the channel course. Sometimes complete walls fall forwards like a tree, causing waves and a racket that echoes in the space of the valley. The first impulse after the explosions is to run away as if the world was falling down. But after a while one gets used to the almost permanent echo of big and small explosions that sound like far shooting, or even a gunshot that sounds like a thunder and makes the footbridges vibrate. Behind that white wall violent storms seem to happen or secret wars with some moments of peace, filled with the constant rumor of running water and the sound of the wind, cut by the points of ice.
The shape
At a first sight the Perito Moreno looks like a big snow avalanche that came from behind the mountains and then was suddenly petrified – with an inclined angle-, when it was just about to fall into the lake. It seems as if an invisible wall is holding that white sea, holding a tremendous force which, if it could advance it would destroy half the planet.
Behind the steep wall thousands of ice peaks can be seen. They look like domes piled up chaotically one after the other. Uncountable transparent cathedrals seem buried under the sea, noticeable only because of the ruined sharp domes. And there are also ice towers which did not fall completely, like the Tower of Pisa. That is the reason why the front of the glacier looks like a big cracked wall that shows its blue inside, and that grows again to fall again but without falling forever. Uncountable fragments and big blocks of ice float around the glacier, some of them stuck on the coast as a celestial boat.
The glacier is surrounded by peaks and mountains around 2,000 high. But these inhuman proportions are lost in the middle of such a vast place. The front of the glacier is 60 meters high, but the same wall of ice is 120 tall under the water.
At the end of the visit the glacier looks like the unreachable border of a concentric universe of transparences that seem to twinkle in the sun. Its light dazzles and makes it difficult to see over its irregular surface, and when observing its border it is overwhelming to think that behind those crystal towers the enigmas of the origin of men can be hidden, the secret of perfect beauty, or some of the lost paradises the adventurers of the Patagonia have looked for. In the same way as in the jungle – that other almost impenetrable natural wall-, this hermetic frozen microcosms remains almost forbidden to human senses, and the only consolation is to feel it from far away (or walking for a while on its surface). When leaving the park – under a yellow sunset-, there will not exist a way to leave the chaotic shapes of the ice behind. Neither its cold abstract image, like those of empty windows, which is at the same time a luminous labyrinth of changing shapes worth to stay with us until the end.
