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Having traveled to Alaska twice and spent a week in Torres del Paine, I’ve seen my fair share of glaciers.  And let’s be honest, everybody loves glaciers.  There is something irresistible about the idea that snow falling over millions of years slowly compacts into ice and, under its own crushing weight, flows downhill, leveling mountains along the way.  Perito Moreno glacier is the granddaddy of them all – not because it’s the largest, but because it’s wildly active, with enormous ferry boat size chunks of ice crashing into water, and because it’s incredibly easy to get a safe, close-up view of the show.

Two hundred foot face of Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno is a stable glacier.  This means that, while it advances about 6 feet per day, it also calves off about 6 feet of its face into the waters of Lake Argentina, keeping the face of the glacier in the same spot.  This stability has enabled the park service to build a set of permanent viewing platforms on land right up against the face of the glacier.  And with a sheer cliff-like face that is up to 200 feet tall, there’s a whole lot of ice crashing into the water.

Intently watching the glacier show

Splash!

From our first glance of the glacier, we were hooked. We rushed to the viewing platform and that’s where we stayed, riveted to the spot, for over four hours. We could hear the groaning of grating ice stretching to the breaking point, and saw small chunks of ice break away and crash into the water with huge splashes. We were too afraid to look away for even a minute in case we’d miss one of the big ones.  After an hour or so our friend, Regina, had to use the bathroom.  Right as she left up the path, a huge 200 foot tall section of the face gave way and crashed into the water.  After that, no more bathroom!  We even ended up breaking out a camp stove and making our lunch right there at the overlook, earning us some looks from other tourists.  After four hours of intense glacier watching and a whole lot of awesome ice falls, we had a bus to catch.  We reluctantly peeled ourselves away.