El Calafate Travel Guide

Perito Moreno Glacier is the crown jewel of Los Glaciares National Park and one of the world's most famous living glaciers: a 5-km-wide tongue rising 60-74 metres above Lago Argentino, about 170 metres thick in total, advancing roughly 2 metres a day while keeping a rare mass balance (its northern front has shown retreat since 2020). Some 4-5.5 km of multi-level metal walkways stand just 300 metres from the ice, putting visitors eye to eye with the blue crevasse light — and daily calving crashes into the lake with a thunder-like roar that carries down the Iceberg Channel. Every four or five years the glacier dams the lake and collapses in a spectacular rupture. Just 78 km from El Calafate with no trek required, it is Patagonia's undisputed number-one sight.

Lake Argentino is Argentina's largest lake by area and a giant glacial lake fed by meltwater from the Southern Patagonian glaciers, its unique milky blue color coming from suspended glacial 'rock flour'. The town of El Calafate sits on its shore. The lake's north arm holds glaciers like Upsala and Spegazzini, hard to reach by land, visitable only by the 'Glaciers' cruise that goes deep among floating ice and giant ice walls. The Laguna Nimez nature reserve by the town hosts flamingos and other waterbirds; lake light and snow mountains reflect each other—the tranquil, beautiful natural backdrop of El Calafate.

Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz province is Patagonia's glacial kingdom and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its crown jewel is the Perito Moreno Glacier, a roughly 5 km-wide wall of ice plunging from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field into Lake Argentino, periodically calving house-sized blocks that crash and boom across the water. The park also rings granite spires like Mount Fitz Roy, where trekking, ice-watching and 'big ice' walks deliver polar-like grandeur and silence. Boat trips from El Calafate approach the wall, where you hear the glacier's deep internal cracks.

The Glaciar Upsala is one of the largest glaciers in Los Glaciares National Park, covering about 595 km² in the northern ice tongue. Because it has been retreating steadily, it is now seen only from boats on Lake Argentino or Lake Viedma, its ice wall and bergs viewed from the water.