Glacier Hiking in Patagonia

Six Months in South America, Part 2

Part 2 of the Six Months in South America series: I make it to Patagonia to hike Chile’s popular W Trek, visit Argentina’s national trekking capital, and experience my first hike on a glacier. Read part 1 here.

From Puerto Natales, Chile, Kim and I took a bus to Torres del Paine National Park, in preparation to hike the famous W Trek. The W Trek is one of my favorite hikes in South America, and summiting the final peak was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Quick links:

• Best Hikes in El Chaltén, Argentina’s Trekking Capital

• A Guide to Hiking Chile’s W Trek in Torres del Paine

• Chile’s W Trek: 4-Day Itinerary from West to East

Mirador Los Torres in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

We camped and hiked for four days and three nights, and although the trek is immensely popular, there were moments when we were the only ones on the trail.

After the W Trek, Kim and I returned to the Argentinean side of Patagonia to visit El Calafate and El Chaltén, the trekking capital of Argentina. In El Calafate, I tried my first hike on a glacier, one of the best tours of the trip. 

At first, I was absolutely terrified to walk on the Perito Moreno Glacier. I kept thinking of what it would feel like to slip into a crevasse. I was worried about slowing the group down or being left behind.

But our guides, Sophia and Marcos, were steady and patient. Marcos told me to step hard on the ice and trust my crampons. Sophia told us to walk like a duck on the uphills and strut like a cowboy on the downhills, almost swaggering down the compacted snow. 

It was otherwordly to walk across this enormous mass that’s been forming and drifting for more than 18,000 years. Sophia taught us that the Southern Patagonia ice field is the third largest in the world, after Antarctica and Greenland.

The glacier isn’t really made of ice but compressed snow which comes from the mountains. The paths change every two weeks, sometimes even earlier. I think this must help the guides never get bored. They always need to be looking for new routes to find the safest path up the glacier. 

The Perito Moreno Glacier will stay steady, with some shrinking for the next 100 years. I hope conditions will remain stable enough so that the glacier can be enjoyed by future generations and not go the way of other masses affected by the volatile, changing climate.

I’d want my future family to experience it, too.

The Perito Moreno Glacier has been forming for more than 18,000 years.

Thanks for reading! I’ll share part 3 about Carnaval in Uruguay next week.