After the boat ride of the left face of the glacier, we were driven to the Visitor Center where we Leslie and I got a sandwich, hamburger, bottle of champagne, and then headed off to wander the labyrinth of walkways around the glacier and watch some calving!
We had been told about “the rupture” of the glacier which is caused when ice forms a natural dam cutting Lago Argentino in half as the ice pushes forth so much that it reached the opposite shore. I will include a picture of a diagram in the park that helps depict where the passage narrows.
Eventually, the water on the Brazo Rico side of the lake builds up and puts so much pressure on the damn that it erodes the ice until an arch forms and eventually the arch collapses into what is called ‘the rupture’.
There is no set pattern to when ‘the rupture’ will happen. Sometimes it can happen a year apart, other times there can be as much as a 10 year timespan between ruptures.
We could have sat and watched the glacier all day. It is so beautiful and the weather was heavenly! We saw several calvings. They were loud, but nothing like the noise of the Polito Glacier when we were cruising around on the Via Australis about a week or so ago. The difference being that we were right next to the calving at the Polito.
