The Place: Glacier & San Rafael Lagoon.

San Rafael glacier, Northern Ice Field. Patagonia, Chile

Impressive. Majestic. This is the San Rafael Glacier; a magnificent natural scenery that offers one of the most beautiful landscapes in Chile and in the world. The San Rafael Lagoon offers an outstanding experience; a journey through the southern fjords aboard the catamaran Patagonia Express to discover the Laguna San Rafael and it´s enormous glacier.

This journey starts very early from Puyuhuapi, where from the Lodge’s jetty you board the Patagonia Express to sail for approximately 7 hours through the Patagonian channels and islands. Upon reaching the Laguna San Rafael, and now on board Zodiac boats, you will enjoy the incredible experience of sailing, approaching the ice floes that float freely, and on the return journey you can enjoy a whisky coupled with millennial ice recently taken from the lagoon.

The San Rafael Lagoon forms part of the 1,742,000 hectares that make up  San Rafael Lagoon National Park, and in 1979 it was declared a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. It is located 600km to the south of Puerto Montt, in the extreme south of the Moraleda channel, at the foot of the Northern Ice Field, into it flows the gigantic San Rafael Glacier, whose ice is more than 300,000 years old and originates from the San Valentín Snowcap, in the Northern Ice Field of the Andes.

The Laguna San Rafael, which currently measures approximately 16km in length and 11km in width, was described for the first time only 300 years ago, by a Spanish seafarer named Antonio de Vea. Back then, the glacier did not reach the edge of the lake. It was necessary to disembark and walk through the valley to touch the face of the ice. In 1873, Commander Enrique Simpson stated that the glacial mass occupied almost three quarters of the lagoon. In only 200 years, the face of the glacier had advanced more than 10km. However, it soon began a swift withdrawal and in 1950 the ice mass hardly penetrated a couple of kilometers into the water. Retreating at a speed of 150m to 200m annually, in 1982 the face of the glacier had already started to withdraw towards the valley. However, the tongue of the glacier has not only withdrawn, it has also lost part of its thickness. It is important to highlight that the rapid retreat of this glacier marks one of the effects of the planet’s global warming, and not so much a change in climatic cycles, due to atmospheric contamination and the destruction of woods and forests that regulate the Earth’s climate. Without a doubt, this constitutes a warning sign about the destructive effect of man.

Upon approaching the great wall of ice, the scene becomes more and more awesome. Each landslide from the glacier produces a thunder and an impressive sight is the emergence of enormous masses of ice from the base of the glacier, gigantic blocks that easily reach the size of a building

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