Perito Moreno Glacier

I feel a deep, slow rumble inside me, a groan that has echoed for centuries. Imagine being so immense that your own weight makes you move. I am a giant, but I travel slower than a snail, a river of ice packed so tightly that the light trapped within me glows a brilliant, chilly blue. The air around me is crisp and cold, whistling down from the tall, jagged peaks of the Andes Mountains in a land at the very southern tip of South America called Patagonia. For miles and miles, there is only the quiet of the mountains, the shimmer of a vast lake at my feet, and the sound of my own cracking and shifting. I am made of ancient snow, squeezed into solid ice over thousands of years. I am so heavy that I creep forward every single day, carving the very earth beneath me. People travel from all over the world to see me, to hear my icy sighs and watch my slow, powerful dance. They stand on walkways and in boats, their warm breaths turning to mist in the cold air as they stare up at my towering walls of ice. I am a river of ice, a frozen giant on a slow and steady journey. My name is the Perito Moreno Glacier.

My story began long before there were any towns or roads here, thousands of years ago. High up in the Andes, snow fell year after year, never melting completely. The weight of new snow pressed down on the old snow, squeezing out all the air and turning it into dense, hard ice. That’s how I was born. Slowly, I began to slide down the mountain valley, a colossal ribbon of white and blue. For a very long time, the only ones who saw me were the native people who lived in this wild land. They respected my power and understood the rhythms of nature. Then, new people started to arrive. In the 1870s, a brave explorer from Argentina named Francisco Pascasio Moreno came to this remote corner of the world. He was a scientist, called a "perito" in Spanish, which means "expert." He wasn't afraid of the cold winds or the difficult journey. He traveled all around, studying the mountains, lakes, and glaciers like me. He wanted to understand this land and worked hard to protect it for his country. Because of his important work, the government decided to honor him. On February 15th, 1899, I was officially given his name: Perito Moreno. I carry his name with pride, a reminder of the man who first helped the world see how special this place truly is.

While I move slowly most of the time, I have a very exciting trick that I perform every few years. It’s what makes me famous. I stretch across a narrow arm of the huge Lake Argentino, and my icy front slowly advances until it touches the land on the other side. When I do this, I become a massive ice dam. The water from one part of the lake is trapped, and it can’t flow into the other. Day by day, the water level behind me rises, pushing against my icy wall with incredible force. The pressure builds and builds. You can hear me groaning and creaking under the strain. Deep cracks begin to form, and small pieces of ice start to fall. Finally, when the pressure is too much to bear, my dam gives way in a spectacular event called a rupture. With a sound like thunder, a massive tunnel of water bursts through my base, and huge chunks of my ice wall collapse into the lake, creating enormous waves and sending icebergs floating away. This has been happening for over a century. The first time people wrote it down was in 1917, and I put on another amazing show as recently as March 12th, 2018.

A Treasure for the World
Because I am so unique and powerful, people realized that I and the beautiful wilderness around me needed to be kept safe. It wasn’t just about me, but also about the special forests, mountains, and animals that call this place home. So, on May 11th, 1937, the government of Argentina created Los Glaciares National Park to protect me and my icy neighbors. This meant my home would be preserved forever. My importance grew even more in 1981, when an organization that protects special places all over the globe named my park a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This title means I am considered a natural treasure for all of humanity. Today, I continue my slow journey, showing everyone who visits the incredible power and beauty of the natural world. I am a living piece of the Ice Age, and I hope I remind people how important it is to protect our amazing planet for many, many more years to come.