The Perito Moreno glacier is probably the most famous glacier in the Argentine glacier park. There is easy access via road, from El Calafate (about 80 kilometres). It is about 30 kilometres long and 250 square kilometres in area. The glacier is about 5 kilometre wide at its terminus and rises about 74 metres (240 feet) above Lago Argentino, which should start to give you an idea of its massive size. It is about 170 metre thick.

The altitude is low at about 300m above sea level, which is easily the lowest altitude of any glacier I have visited.

It pushes against the hillside where the major lookout points of Los Terrazzos are located, and it closes off the Brazo Rico arm from Lago Argentino, which every decade or so causes a spectacle as the ice wall collapses when the enclosed lake level is too high.

In the panorama photo below, you can see how the glacier is pushed against the rock below Los Terrazzos, closing off the Brazo Rico arm of the lake. The most recent ice collapse caused by the rising water level in Brazo Rico, which cannot escape any other way, was four years earlier. Click on the image for an enlarged image.

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When you drive into Los Glacieres national park along Peninsular Magallanes, the road skirts the Brazo Rico arm of the Lago Argentino (Argentine lake). Brazo Rico is the southern arm of the lake, which is closed off by the Perito Moreno from the main part of Lago Argentino on a cyclic basis. The photo was taken where the peninsular heads north, about 30 km along the peninsular road to the end point of the Los Terrazos lookout opposite Perito Moreno's terminus. You can see the glacier running from the edge of the mountain on its left to the hills on the right.

The photos below the satellite image show this southern terminus of Perito Moreno glacier from several look out points along the road.

If you take the ice walking tours, you depart from a small port on Brazo Rico.

WARNING. If you are over 50 the tour company does not permit you to do the 'Big Ice' tour - a 2.5 hour walk on the glacier. Since I regularly walk on glaciers in Switzerland, I found this 'rule' to be ridiculous. Luckily I could walk on the Viedmar glacier, which many people told me was a better glacier walk anyway. And I do not recommend the quick 25 minute walk from the same tour company, unless you have never been on a glacier before because it will be too short, you will only briefly stand on the glacier  and for more experienced people it will be uninteresting. And be assured, the walk will be on relatively flat ice, not the jagged peaks you see in my photos.

On my second day's visit to Perito Moreno, it was a Saturday and I had to park in the lower car park on the shore of Lago Argentino, located to the north east of the glacier. This provided a different perspective to the Brazo Rico views from the south east and to the views from the Los Terrazzos terraces directly above and east of the glacier.

I walked along the lake shore and then onto the walkway leading up the lower terraces of Los Terrazzos. In the fourth photo below you can see part of the walkway rising from the lake. The walk was about 3 kilometres. The last two photos are from the lowest terrace look out. In general the walkway makes it easy to walk around and protects the local flora, so long you are moderately fit the stairs should not prove too tiring as they climb at a moderate gradient. 

The easiest views of the Perito Moreno are from Los Terrazzos (the terraces) which are built on several levels on the hill just east of the glacier. I drove there after flying into El Calafate and checking into my hosteria. The drive is about 80 kilometres and takes 50-60 minutes, as half the road is inside the national park with a 40 speed limit.

Luckily my late arrival (@ 5 pm) on a Friday meant I could park in the upper car park at the top of Los Terrazzos. There were few tourists there at that time as most tours head back to town earlier in the afternoon. Naturally you pay a park entry daily fee, about 25 to 30 USD. If you enter the park from different places on the same day, you still only pay once. I did this on my second visit to the park on the boat tour to Upsala glacier and then re-entering the Perito Moreno glacier sector on the same day.

The color of the glacial ice in the shadows is really the amazing bright 'electric' blue you see in the photos. I did not photoshop the images to emphasize the color. The colour is an optical illusion, further emphazised by the clear blue skies, but also due to the nature of the ice itself.

Having walked on glaciers in New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, and France, it is the blue color that really sets these glaciers and their icebergs apart.

These panoramas of Perito Morena glacier are taken from various view points along Los Terrazzos. There are 4 different levels. If you start at the upper car park like I did on my first day visit, you will start at the top most terrace and then walk over steel grid walkways down to lower levels. My guess is that to cover all the levels you will walk about 3 to 4 kilometres and quite a lot of stairs, but I really recommend you do all the levels as the impressions (and photos) you get of the glacier vary by level. I took about 2.5 hours in total and several 100s of photos.

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Enjoy!