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.

Upsala Glacier is a major tongue of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field flowing into the northern arm of Lago Argentino. At 765 square kilometres it is among South America's largest glaciers, and it takes its name from Sweden's Uppsala University, which studied it in the early 1900s. Unlike Perito Moreno, which has boardwalks and ice treks, Upsala has no road access and no walking on the ice: the only way there is a full-day cruise from Punta Bandera pier, about 50 kilometres west of El Calafate, through the Devil's Mouth narrows into the northern arm, threading between calved icebergs toward the front. The glacier has retreated markedly in recent decades, and the huge bergs it sheds often choke the channel, so boats frequently cannot get close. That obstructed view is itself the clearest statement of its scale. The same sailing passes the Dry Glacier hanging on a slope short of the water, Heim Glacier and Spegazzini Glacier, whose walls rise up to 135 metres, the tallest in the park, with a landing at Spegazzini Base for its walkways and viewpoints. Sailings run year-round, daily from September to April and every other day from May to August; decks are cold and windy, so bring a windproof layer, sunglasses and sunscreen.