This wonderful region carved and shaped in the ice ages is receiving more and more visitors every day.
El Calafate is the most important tourist centre of the territory. From there, different excursions leads to glaciers, lakes, and rough and stony peaks.
This little town is located on the shore of "El Lago Argentino" or Lago de Aguas Verdes. Surounded by a lot of vegetation, like willows, pines, poplars, calafates, between other trees.
The huge blocks of ice will amaze you due to its raw beauty and if you have the oportunity of witnessing the breaks, you will be speechless and impressed.
Also you will have the wonderful opportunity to enjoy the glaciers in front of you, and walks through them over the surface.
In this region, throughout the Mountain range of the Andes, the climate is of humid cold type.
In The Andes region the coniferous forests or other species of perennial leaves predominate. The most common species are the sour cherry, ñire and lenga. Below the trees level is possible to find shrubs like "calafate." At level of the ground numerous plants like the wild india berries stand out, amancay, terrestrial orquídeas and ferns.
In the Andean region is plenty of Patagonian foxes, ferrets, eagles, and the condors, being the last one the biggest flying bird of the world. In the rivers and lakes, the native species are puyén, the patagonian mackerel and perch. Other species are trout and salmon, which are very required for the sport fishing. In the plateaus inhabit the choique or Patagonian rhea, the guanaco, Patagonian hare, rodents of small size, small lizards and lizards.
Among the birds there is albatross, petreles, penguins, gulls.
The main attraction in the region is Los Glaciares National Park. Thousands of years ago, glaciers covered a big part of the national park. These ice rivers eroded and gave shape to the landscape, excavating in the mountains large valleys. At the same time these ice rivers were fragmenting and dragging lot of rocks, which had been accumulated in the front and the sides of the glacier, making small hills called “morrenas”. In a later climate change, which included a temperature increase, caused the reduction of the surface occupied by ice. Large milky water lakes occupied the bottom of the valleys and lush forests covered their slopes.
The ice countryside occupied an approximate surface of 2.600 km2 (a 30 % of the surface is covered by ice). From there, 47 bigger glaciers descend. The most famous glacier is the Perito Moreno Glacier, which expands over the south side of the Argentino Lake waters, with a 5 km front and 60 metres high over the lake. Upsala Glacier, which is ubicated in the north side of the same lake, is the bigger one, with 50 km length and almost 10 km wide. Los Glaciares National Park has been declared as part of UNESCO World Heritage List.
An other attractive is the Perito Moreno National Park. This Park's landscape is surrounded by many hills and mountains arranged from east to west and north to south that constitutes a great natural amphitheatre.
This landscape belongs to "patagonic steppes" and "Altoandina" regions. The weather is cold, with permanents snows. The rains of the eco-region vary between 100 and 200 mm. The land is skinny and has an incipient evolution. The vegetation is composed by short bushes and creeping or “en cojin” species.
The Park has three delimited sectors: the steppe, represented by dense “coironales” and examples of “mata torcida”, a transition zone with vegetation composed by “ñire” and “lenga”, and the forest, constituted by “lengas” that localized mostly in seaside zones of Nansen and Azara Lakes.
El Chaltén is an ideal place for backpackers. "El Chaltén" is the way the natives called the area in Santa Cruz Province where the Fitz Roy (3376 m.o.s.l) and Torre (3128 m.o.s.l) peaks are located. The word "Chalten" has its origin in the Tehuelche language and it means "blue mountain" og "smoking montain". This is how the natives called this mountain which seen from long distance can seem to be volcanoes.
These peaks are located in the Andes mountain range, northern area of Los Glaciares National Park (Glaciers National Park), on the shores of Viedma Lake, and show border with Chile.
After several attempts, Fitz Roy was climbed in 1952, while the same happened with Torre in 1959. It must be considered that these two peaks are one of the biggest challenge for climbers all over the world.
El Chaltén is also the name taken by a small village located in the sorroundings of Fitz Roy. It has been declared National Trekking Capital and it was settled in 1985. Its population reached 332 inhabitants in 2001. The closest town to El Chaltén Village is El Calafate 220 km away.
The Glaciers Region is, along with Iguazu, the most visited place in Argentina. Magic destination for backpackers because of the quantity and quality of trekking paths and mountain activities, combined with glaciers, hills, lakes and forests. We find here the hostels with the best infrastructure of Argentina and tours and excursions ideal to discover the most beautiful spots in wild Patagonia
