After unboarding, The Wandelgek ascended to the level where the road was to  have some views over Lago Argentino…

… and to see the boat he had been on leave for another tour past the glacier front…

Then he looked up towards the mountain top and almost immediately he saw a few Andorean Condors fly over him…

The Wandelgek now drove further towards the glacier. Weather was getting a tiny bit less cloudy and the sun did show itself occasionally.

The Perito Moreno Glacier has become a real phenomenon, also turistically speaking. Yes there are alternative glaciers to visit, like e.g. the larger Upsala Glacier, but my advise would be to not do that as a substitute for visiting the Perito Moreno Glacier. Do both if you have the time, but always include Perito Moreno, because it is so different from the other glaciers.

In my previous blogpost I mentioned the main differences:

1. The glacier has found an equilibrium between ice growth in winter and ice melting in summer, which is a rare phenomenon.
2. The glacier seperates part of Lago Argentino from another part and thus blocks fresh water from entering one part of the lake. This water rises and builds up pressure on the glacier which once every couple of years ruptures very violently and releases the water from the risen part of the lake.

The glacier is because of this a very active calving glacier. I watched calvings of glaciers before when visiting Greenland, but the calvings I saw here are of a much larger volume.

See also:

26. Sailing North…

While on the ship I only witnessed some relatively small calvings, comparable to the ones I saw at the Eqip Sermia glacier in Greenland. Those are already awesome in terms of sound and also seeing the waves caused by the falling ice. But nothing prepared me of what I was going to see next (spoiler: it is not on photo or vid, because it happens very unpredictably and is a phenomenon which lasts only seconds). But I can tell you about what I saw and show you some alternative beautiful material of the glacier.

For walkers it is possible to get even nearer to the glacier’s edge than by boat, because of the metal walkways that were created in a large area around the glacier front.

Metal walkways around the glacier?

This is possible because due to the size of the ice cap, these glaciers begin at only 1,500 m (4,900 ft), sliding down to 200 m (660 ft). In other parts of the world, glaciers start at a height of at least 2,500 m (8,200 ft) above mean sea level. This makes them a lot better accessible for us…
The metal walkways start at the same height/level as the car road, but then metal stairs quickly descend towards the height/upper level of the glacier front and several viewing platforms allow the walkers to witness mesmerizing views of the glacier, running down from the southern Patagonian Icefield towards Lago Argentino…

The Wandelgek was blown away by the sheer force (which was visible and audible) and beauty of this huge glacier (which isn’t the largest or even second largest one)…

The ice squeekes and cracks, explodes and sighs, rumbles and bursts underneath the enormous pressure of the ice behind and the rocks where it is being squeezed through…

Beneath the glacier front, in the water, float the victims of that continuously ensuing battle. The remnants of timy, small, large and huge pieces of the glacier that occassionally, unpredictably, but with great certainty broke off of the glacier’s tortured front. The truely gorgeous deep blue shimmering eyecatchers, surrounded by the eye blinding white…

And then it happened. Something The Wandelgek had been hoping in his wildest dreams. After a loud explosion, a humongously large piece of the glacier’s front, suddenly collapsed. First a deep rumble and then crashes of ice falling upon ice and then the sound of roaring water. This all happens within a timespan of 2 seconds (okay the roaring of the water takes a bit longer) but the ice collapsing is at superspeed of light. No chance to grab a camera, just relax and watch it. Soak up this brutal exhibition of nature’s raw force and afterwards, feel very small and understand that as a human you’re impact on nature is insignificant. If nature feels it needs to restore an eqilibrium, which humans might have disturbed in the last 100 years, then it will do so, regardless of humans, but also regardless of time, because nature outlasts all…

What we disturb is regarded as a disaster for nature, but in reality it isn’t. It is a disaster for humankind. It is humans (who are part of nature, something we conveniently like to forget, because we place ourselves outside of nature) that need to learn how to adapt to nature’s extreme conditions, nature feels nothing (except for the tiny part of nature that we learned to call Life andvwhich includes us humans), it simply is.

But enough of that. The Wandelgek witnessed the aftermath of the destruction which was caused by the huge glacier calving and now that peace had returned and the water had calmed down, it was all beauty that was left to observe…

Then The Wandelgek started to walk again, because the metal walkways were quite long and they were going toban area which got even nearer to the glacier’s  front…

The walkways were just behind a few trees which provided a bit of depth on the photo’s taken…

Isn’t that the most beautiful color blue ever?

The blue parts are like deep caves penetrating the glacier’s front…

The surface of a glacier is al wrinkled, broken, because of the immense pressure that forces it between rocky mountain slopes towards the lowest possible areas and eventually into a lake or ending on a mountain slope in an area where the melting of ice into water goes faster than the freezing of water into ice…

The Wandelgek thought it was incredibly beautiful to see this monumental, sluggishly advancing ice wall, sometimes crumbling because of the temperature melting the ice and of course because of the weight of the ice and simple gravitational forces…

So why is there no effective climate policy on our planet. Well think about this. The political leftwing and leftwing activist groups in mostly wealthy western countries are trying to create policies, laws  and behavior which have a large effect on temperature reduction, but which ultimately are very expensive for industries, farmers and common people. In non western countries, this same climate policy is dependant on autoritarian or even totalitarian regimes and democratic regimes that do not have the financial means to support this.

Industries can move to other non western countries where there are less rules that they need to follow and they can become even more polluting than they already were in western countries. Not a good idea.

Farmers (including bio industry) can be reduced in western countries, but this will be compensated by non western companies, meaning less income for the western countries and very probably more reduction of important nature in poorer countries. Not a good idea.

Common people (partly already living in economicly difficult conditions) start to resit these, in their eyes too expensive, leftwing and political center originating ideas, which drives them right into the arms of rightwing politicians which completely deny climate change or think that it is enough to depend on future technical solitions. This prevents a worlwide solving of the climate crisis. Leftwing and political centerpoliticians and rightwing politicians are frustrated with eachother, whether respectively about the denial or underestimating or minimization of the climate crisis and the not recognizing that the climate reduction policies are too expensive for loads of people to bear.

But that isn’t all. The split of the world in Democratic and autoritarian regimes who compete eachother regarding world domination, doesn’t help either.

E.g. Is Russia interested in temperature reduction while temperature rise opens up their access of gas and oil field in the Arctic and opens a nordic ship route around Siberia from West to East which they control?

There are more examples related to Geopolitics, but I do not hear climate researchers and activists address these issues enough. They are really problematic in achieving solutions but the focus is not directed on this but only on convincing Democratic governments to reduce temperature, meanwhile making them (through income reduction) weaker in relation to these non democratic regimes where there is no place for climate activism. I mean nobody wants to suffer from the consequences of climate change, but nobody wants to live in under a dictatorship either. Another reason why rightwing politics get more support from people.

Conclusion of my thoughts: Personally I think these political parties and their politicians should stop polarizing the debate and start to work together regardless of their differences. And yes this means that not all goals for either right or leftwing activists and politicians will be met regarding climate change reduction. Common ground however does lead to better results than No ground at all. It is a matter of weighing idealism and what is practically achievable.

Having written this, I’m still very much evolving my thoughts. They are not thoughts cast into stone yet.

Enough of that, but hoping some people start to rethink their actions from rightwing party leaders to leftwing climate activist leaders, because the current direction where opponents dig deep trenches and then keep their distance in an everlasting stand off, doesn’t work.

What do you think?

The Wandelgek was rhinking about a lot of these things while walking past the glacier. The metal walkways are quite long. But he did not forget to simply enjoy the views and make beautiful pics and vids as well ?.

Some pics are possible contenders for addition to my Design by Nature blogpost. Like e.g. the one below. Maybe I should cut off the top then.

Design by Nature

Beneath are some of the blue-est pieces of ice that I’ve ever seen…

And then it happened again. A huge piece of the icefront collapsed under a thunderous roar, upsetting the water which changed into a whitewater hottub, before peace was slowly restored again…

Beneath is a vid made just seconds after a huge piece of glacier front had collapsed…

Nature is still awesome even while threatened…

Then The Wandelgek drove back to El Calafate to make preparations for the next exciting stage of his journey.