El Calafate, Argentina: Glaciers and Icebergs by Boat

Today I took a seven-hour boat trip on Lake Argentino to get to some of the glaciers that are not easily accessible by land.  There were two boats that went (which came in handy to give perspective to some of the pictures, like the one above).  Argentina's largest lake is quite impressive, with four distinct arms (all ending in glaciers), and a depth of over 700m (2100ft) in many places.  We traveled two of those arms today.

One of the first things we saw was a huge, beautiful iceberg that was a remnant of the Upsala Glacier break-off.  It was quite beautiful against the morning sky!

Another one of Upsala's break-offs.  The Upsala Glacier, which is one of the largest in Los Glaciares National Park, lost a 700m-long (2100ft-long) section of it's front in 2010.  As a result, there are many huge icebergs still floating in the Upsala Channel arm of Lake Argentino.  It's even more impressive to think that what you can see is only 10-15% of the iceberg's total size--the rest is underwater!

This is Glaciar Seca ('Dry Glacier').  It was named thus because it has been receding ever since it was first documented in the early 1900s as a result of the earth's natural warming cycle, though that process has certainly been accelerated in the past thirty years by global warming.

Some giant icebergs from the Glacier Spegazzini.  The boat in between, which is three stories tall, really gives an idea of how huge these masses of ice are!

Me in front of the huge icebergs.

Glaciar Spegazzini.  This one was my favorite, because it reminds me of a waterfall (see how the ice on the right looks like it is falling from the top of the mountain?).  Truly magnificent.

Me holding a block of ice that one of the sailors fished out from the lake, with the Spegazzini Glacier in the background.  Needless to day, it was really cold.

The Upsala Glacier from a distance.  See all that lighter blue in near the bottom of the mountains?  That's all part of the glacier.  In fact, pre-2010, the rocks you see in the foreground were also completely covered by the glacier, but when that 700m-long piece broke off and began drifting into the lake, it left the rocks behind.

The ice fields in front of the Upsala Glacier.

My last shot of the glaciers and icebergs of Patagonia!  (That one in the middle is dark because it started to melt, so instead of the rock being all spread out through the glacier, it has condensed on the top.)  It has been an amazing three days.  Now...on to the waterfalls :-)