Patagonia: Glaciar Perito Moreno

I feel it a living thing beneath my feet; its sun-smoothed, white skin yielding to my spiked crampons, its glowing turquoise flesh revealed in fissures and caverns, countless rivulets of melt flowing madly across its sensuous surface.

The steady pressure of the wind, cool and dry, presses against me as I climb, resisting my incursion, threatening to topple me back to the rocky soil where I belong. The blue-grey clouds hang low between the barren peaks, breaking to scatter patches of white light from sweet blue wounds.

I sense the beast below me moving, grinding down the broad valley towards the turquoise lake, pressing against itself between the mountains, compressing and cracking with basso profundo groans.

I fall.

My cleets lock and I fall to my knees, shocked with pain and humiliation. I expect to feel cold, wet, the sharp cut of crystals. Instead, the steady grasps of my fellow travellers pull me to my feet, concerned faces encircle me, shielding me from the soaring, menacing spires of the ice.

My racing heart calmed, I draw a steady breath and firmly plant my crampons on her surface, defiant but respectful.


The Glaciar


The classic view of the Perito Moreno glacier is from the walkways across the Iceberg channel - a 5 km wide glacier tongue rising an imposing 70 meters over the turqoise waters of Lago Argentino.


You could stand there for hours watching the fractured gothic spires of ice crack with basso profundo booms and with graceful dignity slip into the water below, sending concentric tsunamis in all directions.


But from water level, the view is less poetic, more terrifying. The glacier towers over the lake, threatening, impenetrable, immovable.










It is terrifying ... and fascinating. The air is not cold. Perito Moreno sits only a five degrees south of the Tropic of Cancer, and only 1,000 meters above sea level. So the air is strangely warm. The glacier is continually moving - a meter or two a day - and continually melting. But the warm winds from the Pacific, pressed between the high Andean peaks, drops copious amounts of snow on the ice field above - enough to ensure that Perito Moreno is stable, not retreating.



Every angle throws it into a different light.



Framing it with rocky shorelines, with massive driftwood trunks; giving it context with tour boats and tourists, with the forest on the opposite shore, adds emphasis to its grandeur. I convince myself as try to absorb its beauty, that there is nothing like it in the world.

And as terrifying as it is,
I climb onto its back!

The Trek

In groups of 12, we're led onto the surface of the glacier by experienced guides who galumph around us on their crampons, offering a helping hand to climb steep stretches, guiding us around open fissures and holding us as we peer into bottomless drainholes.

We stop frequently to regroup, catch our breath, watch the movement of the light across the snowy surface of the glacier.

We're a strangely quiet group, awed by the immensity of our experience. Keeping an eye out for each other. The American woman gives her extra sweater to the chilled Japanese youth. The Dutch couple obligingly snap souvenir photos of solo travellers.

From the highest point, the full scale of the glacier is revealed. We've merely climbed a ridge, a simple shoulder along one thin edge of this great beast of ice. It's a sobering realization as we tramp down to the solid earth.

But even sobering thoughts can be cured. In this case, by a glass of "Blenders" whiskey served over 400 year old ice cubes.

"Mata-dolor" I call it. Pain killer. My guides laugh, but I mean it.





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