The surface of Perito Moreno was more rugged than I'd expected. The glacier guides were daredevils with stories to tell. And scotch on the rocks is different here!
My previous "walking on glacier" experience had been at the Columbia Ice Field, in the Canadian Rockies. While that was interesting (and shocking, to see how quickly that ice has receded), it didn't prepare me for Perito Moreno glacier, in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina.
Mini-trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, Argentina
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Perito Moreno was one of the stops on our Patagonia tour, and our aim for the day was to strap on some crampons, and go out "mini-trekking" on the glacier. We took a boat across Lago Argentina in front of the glacier, and a short walk through the woods, then emerged at the edge of the glacier, where we donned our gear.
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The first surprise was how rugged the surface of the glacier was. It was all steep hills up and down, with jagged peaks of ice towering over our trail. You can tell from the pictures this is no smooth field of snow! As we walked along, we passed holes in the ice filled with frigid water and the distinctive blue light of the glacier, and crevasses that went down who knows how far...
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Perito Moreno glacier is one of 48 glaciers connected to the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, high in the Andes mountains of South America. The ice field straddles the border of Chile and Argentina, with glaciers reaching out in both directions. Only three of the glaciers are growing, and Perito Moreno is one of them.
The glacier moves several feet/day, constantly breaking off at the front edge
The glacier is a slow-moving river of ice, advancing several feet per day. At its front end, at Lago Argentina, there's a vertical wall of ice about 200 feet high. Enormous slabs of ice are constantly falling off the front of the glacier, so that the ice keeps moving, but the front stays in pretty much the same place. With this constant shifting of ice, every morning, the glacier guides have to scout out a new route for the day's tours.
The guides are experts, who straddled crevasses cavalierly, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Their stories of off-duty adventure were astonishing.
One guide said the most dangerous thing he ever did was free climb up the face of the glacier. (He said he would never do that one again - unless somebody bet him a lot of money!) This is 200 feet up a wall of ice that's constantly breaking off! We saw numerous huge chunks calve off and crash into the lake while we were there, testament to the constantly shifting nature of Perito Moreno.
Scotch on the (very old) rocks!
But the tale of derring-do that took my breath away was scuba diving in the glacier. Those holes in the blue ice we passed that were filled with freezing water? They'd find a large hole that looked promising, and scuba dive into it, following wherever it would lead. I get shivery and claustrophobic just thinking about it! And with the ice continuing its relentless forward march, who knows how long the hole you came through will be there?
Ah well, there's a reason they're out there doing glacier diving, while I'm sitting with my laptop writing a blog post about it! 
At the end of our Perito Moreno mini-trek, we got a nice surprise - a little scotch on the rocks. In this case, the rocks were "millennial ice" - glacier ice that's a thousand years old. Most places the scotch is older then the ice, but not here!
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I'm not sure when we'll be back in Argentina, but the next time we do our women's trip to Patagonia, I definitely want to include Perito Moreno again. It was quite a highlight, and so much fun. Definitely recommended! 
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