Glacier Perito Moreno

At breakfast we met met Stjepan Pavicic’, founder and director of the Patagonia Expedition Race.  He gave us neckbands and a Wenger Swiss Army Knife.  We enjoyed another sunny, windy day following the La Leona river that flows from the huge Lago Viedma into even larger Lago Argentino; where we turn into the wind for the last 32k to this tourist town.  After a day’s rest we visit the main attraction here: Glacier Perito Moreno.  It sometimes blocks and dams up the Brazo Rico arm of the lake until the water level rises high enough to burst through the ice.  From many walkways we look across to a 74m high wall of ice 5 km long.  It comes down 30 km from the Southern Patagonian Icefield, the world’s third-largest reserve of fresh water (after Antarctica and Greenland).

The narrow channel from the Brazo Rico arm of lago Argentino.

Tourists waiting for the glacier to calve. Little chunks break off every few minutes and we witnessed a couple of big ones. It moves at a relatively fast glacial pace of 1.7m/day, and we watched it for over four hours without getting bored. It moved about 0.3m (1') in 4 hours.

The road winds along La leona River.

New Swiss Army knife & neckband from Stjepan Pavicic'.

Mike (54) from Colorado cycling from Ushuaia to Santiago.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 11:28 and is filed under David's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.