The thing that neither words nor images convey adequately is the sheer size of the Perito Moreno glacier. But of course I’m going to try.

First, the words. Perito Moreno’s front on Lake Argentina is three miles wide, with an average height of 240 feet. That’s about the height of a twenty-story office building. It’s also about twenty miles long, one arm of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the third largest reserve of fresh water on the planet (after Antarctica and Greenland). And Perito Moreno is one of only a small handful (three?) of glaciers that are growing. It advances about six to ten feet a day.

Distances are large here under the Patagonian mountains and sky. So the glacier may not look like much from a distance.

But when you’re on a tour boat in front of the glacier, you feel small. Really small. The whole boat full of fifty (more or less) people feels small.

Well, actually, compared to the glacier, the boat *is* small. Here’s a photo from the shore, with the boat about halfway across the lake in front of the glacier. I circled the boat in red. I had to, because otherwise you might miss it.

This is A WHOLE LOT OF ICE.

Next post: Trekking on the ice, or fun with crampons.