Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina - The BIG One That You Can Drive To

At the south end of Los Glaciares National Park is the massive, stunning, and easily accessible glacier, Perito Moreno. We drove about 125 miles from the north section of this park (our fave place in South America - previous post), right to the 130-foot tall face of the glacier. The glacier is 18 miles long, 3 miles wide, and the best part is that it creeps forward nearly 6 feet per day. This guarantees you will see and hear the crash of giant, sky-scraper-sized slabs of ice tumble into the lake below. With a couple of snack breaks, we watched the Perito Moreno show for nearly 12 hours. It was hard to turn away, because you could always hear the echoing boom of something happening. You never wanted to miss out.

Our first view of the glacier with cold, misting clouds and just a peak of sun coming up over the ridge behind us

The illusive morning sun helped highlight the mesmerizing shapes on the face of the glacier.
It's too bad it will all eventually come crashing down.

In the late morning, the clouds dissipated and the reflection on the glacier was blindingly white - harsh.

The deep blue of some of the ice bergs is caused by years and years of crushing and compacting.

From this angle, you can start to appreciate how the glacier could possibly be 18 miles long.

Without any sort of a zoom lens, it was hard to capture some of the excitement.
This one was so big, and took so long to move, I was able to capture a sequence of it.

The sound of the ice slab falling into the lake was deep and booming - so awesome.

Third picture of the action series

As the day wore on, the lighting started to shade the face of the glacier.

The setting sun cast a long shadow of the glacier for our last picture.
We turned our backs for a second, and missed something - the waves in the water were the only evidence.