Hiking on the Perito Moreno Glacier: Our Experience from El Calafate

After a week of hiking in El Chaltén, we drove on to El Calafate, a small town on the edge of Argentina’s impressive Los Glaciares National Park. While El Chaltén is primarily a hiker’s paradise, El Calafate feels larger, livelier, and a bit more upscale. Still, most travelers come here for just one thing: the spectacular Perito Moreno Glacier. This gigantic mass of ice is one of the few glaciers in the world that you can admire from such a close distance. It becomes even more impressive when you actually walk across it during a glacier trek. In this blog, we share our experience with the mini-trek on the Perito Moreno Glacier, what the day entails, and why this is one of the most extraordinary activities in Patagonia.

The Perito Moreno Glacier: The Wonder of Patagonia

The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the few glaciers in the world where you can get this close. It is located in Los Glaciares National Park and is part of the vast South Patagonian Ice Field, the second-largest ice mass in the world after Antarctica. The glacier is about 30 kilometers long and nearly 5 kilometers wide. What makes Perito Moreno special is that, unlike many other glaciers, it remained stable for a long time. That is why it is often called the “wonder of Patagonia.” Yet here, too, the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly evident.

Mini-trekking on the Perito Moreno Glacier

We booked a mini-trekking with Hielo & Aventura. You’ll be taken by shuttle from El Calafate to the harbor, about 70 kilometers away. There, you’ll board a boat that takes you across the lake to the base of the glacier. Accompanied by a guide, you’ll first walk through the forest, and once you’re near the ice, you’ll be given crampons and a helmet. This is followed by a trek of about 1 to 1.5 hours across the ice. Finally, the boat takes you back to the parking lot. You can also opt for “Big Ice,” a tour for true adventurers: three hours on the glacier, with more ice climbing. Although we like to count ourselves among that category, we actually found 1.5 hours on the ice to be perfect. The costs add up quickly:

• Mini-Trekking ~€200

• Big-Ice ~€300

And after all the hiking we’d done over the past few days, we figured we deserved a slightly more relaxed day.

By boat to the foot of the glacier

Instead of taking the shuttle, we drove our own car to the harbor. You can park your car safely there at the boarding area. That way, we were able to enjoy a leisurely lunch on the way. We took it just a little too easy, because suddenly we had to drive another 20 minutes even though it was almost time. We made it onto the boat at the very last minute. From the deck, we could already see the enormous ice wall getting closer: it rises about 50 to 70 meters above the water, but most of it is underwater. Did you know that a glacier doesn’t float, but always rests on the bottom? And that the topography of that bottom determines the shape of the glacier? Here, the substrate is rocky, giving the glacier sharp, pointed shapes. The glacier we saw earlier in Iceland was much smoother. Probably because the bottom there is flatter.

Just like everywhere else in the world, the glaciers here aren’t doing well either. Our guide told us that until 2018, the Perito Moreno was still in balance: in the summer it retreated, but in the winter enough snow and ice accumulated to compensate for that. In the last few years, that balance has disappeared. It’s simply too warm for it to recover. During the hike, the guide showed us “glacier scars”: deep scratches in the rocks that reveal how far the ice once reached. Meanwhile, we regularly heard and saw large chunks of ice breaking off the wall—spectacular and impressive, but also unsettling.

Hiking on the ice with crampons

We really loved the hike itself. The vivid blue colors, the jagged shapes, and just the idea of walking on a living glacier—so extraordinary. We’re used to crampons by now, so the climbing and descending went smoothly. Though these particular ones were definitely mass-produced: ugly and not exactly comfortable. They reminded us of those kids’ skates you used to strap onto your shoes.

The guides told us that the glacier is constantly shifting, which means they have to map out a new route every morning. In fact, a whole new section had become accessible just three days earlier: the heavy rain had created a sort of valley that we could safely walk through. A clear glacial stream flowed through it, and we filled our bottles with its water. We finished off with a glass of whiskey on glacier ice—not our favorite drink, but a fun tradition.

In concusion:

After the hike, we drove to a viewpoint above the glacier. Then back to El Calafate, in search of a restaurant serving lamb. That’s not hard to find here: lambs are roasting on a spit everywhere. But we wanted the very best spot. On our guide’s recommendation, we ended up at Mi Viejo. Without a reservation, there was actually no room, but just one table happened to open up. We ordered a serving of lamb—more than enough for two—paired with a good glass of Malbec. What a pair of foodies we are. But hey, after all, this was our last night in Argentina.