Iceberg, straight ahead!

A tourist boat cruises by the Perito Moreno Glacier, offering persepctive to the enormity of the flowing frozen river. - AC

Driving into Los Glaciares National Park in southern Patagonia, the landscape is a strange mix of Nevadan desert, Colorado peaks and Alaskan ice fields.

Once inside the park people are bundled in windbreakers, tightly tied around their heads. And while the air temperature is not all that cold, the gusts can chill you, or at least me, right to the bone. But everyone is smiling, snapping photos of the Perito Moreno Glaciar - one of the largest attractions in Patagonia.

As impressed as Alex his parents, Paul and Chris, and I were with the first, long-distance viewpoint, we had no idea the splendor we were in for.

The glacier is fed by the southern Patagonia ice field, the third largest in the world after Antarctica and Greenland. And this particular glacier - amazing not only for its size and access - is one of just a few that are not retreating.

The ice field looks like just that - a field. It`s not flat, smooth and one-dimensional like when Donner Lake freezes over, but goes for miles and miles with icy blue crags that jut into the sky. And if you stay real quiet, you can hear the glacier speak - it creaks and cracks until finally the heat of the sun`s rays or the pressure from the flowing ice-river pushes forward and huge chunks come crashing into the lake below.

And the thing is gigantic. The glacier face itself is 60 meters high, about that of a 15-story building. One guidebook says you can literally fit the city of Buenos Aires on it.

We were lucky enough to catch both pictures and video when a VW bus-sized ice chunk tore off from the glacier - a noise like that of a crumbling building. And we were so impressed with our first trip to the glacier that we made a second a few days later, and even after hours of waiting for another spectacle, found we were fortunate on our first viewing. We tried uploading the video, but it will have to wait for more up-to-date technology or someone who knows how to do it. For now, enjoy Alex`s still-shot of the shedding iceberg.

- JMH

Alex catches on the film the glacier as it sheds part of its front face. It sounds like an office building crumbling to the ground. - AC