Perito Moreno Ice Trek: Minitrekking with Walkways and Boat Ride
Description
Book a Mini trekking on the Perito Moreno Glacier and you will feel the ice closer than ever! This full-day excursion will take you to walk over the glacier, fully equipped and accompanied by our certified bilingual guides, for a day. You will also have access to the Glacier's balconies during a whole hour in order to get the best views and landscapes of the National Park before going for this one of a kind experience! The excursion includes a 20 minutes navigation to the Perito Moreno Glacier and a long walk over the Ice to discover every corner of the Glacier. Don't miss this fabulous experience of walking on the glacier!
Tour Options
Itinerary
The tour starts with the pick up from your centrally located El Calafate Hotel (if option selected). Exact pick up time will be reconfirmed the day before the tour.
After passing by the hotels, we will take the Provincial Route N°11 to enter Los Glaciares National Park. This unique natural wonder has been declared a "World Heritage Site of Humanity" by UNESCO in 1981. The National Park includes a scenario of mountains, lakes and forests, a large portion of the Andes Mountains covered with ice and snow to the west and the arid Patagonian steppe to the east.
Once in the “Bajo las Sombras” port, you will board a ship to cross the Lago Rico to arrive at the opposite shore after a 20-minute trip approximately in front of the southern wall of the Perito Moreno Glacier. For those who have chosen the option without transfers, this is where you will meet your guide who will give you all the necessary instructions.
Once on the ground, a short 20-minute walk begins with a talk about glaciology along the shore of the lake towards the glacier. Once on the ice, the guides put on each participant a pair of crampons and give them instructions on how they should walk on the ice. In the about 1:30 hour walk on the glacier, you will be able to appreciate a wide variety of ice formations as well as cracks, glacier mills and small ponds. The trekking difficulty is moderate. The ice surface over which you walk is irregular, but firm and safe. You will get information about flora and fauna and about the particular phenomenon that only takes place in the Perito Moreno Glacier and that eventually produces its rupture.
After the ice-trek and a 20-minute boat ride back to the port. If you choose the option with transfers the tour includes a visit to the walkways of Los Glaciares National Park . There, you will be able to enjoy the amazing panoramic landscape of the Glacier and to walk along some of the self guided trails. If you choose the option without transfers, the walkways are not included. You should go by your own.
In the afternoon, after visiting the walkways and enjoying the beautiful views of the Glacier, we will be returning again to our hotels in El Calafate.
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
The pick up transfer is only from selected centrally located hotels. If your hotel is outside the geographic area, we will confirm you the closest meeting point. Indicate the name and address of your hotel. IMPORTANT NOTE: Pickup time may vary between 7:30 AM & 10:00 AM according to availability.
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Not recommended for travelers with poor cardiovascular health
- Not recommended for travelers with spinal injuries
- Not recommended for pregnant travelers
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
- Minimum age is 8
- Maximum age is 65 due to age restrictions on the operator's insurance
- Children must be accompanied by an adult
- Sports shoes or trekking boots and warm wool or cotton socks are highly recommended
- Comfortable sportswear, long trousers, warm sweater or pile, water or windproof jacket, sun glasses, sun block and gloves are recommended
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Pickup time may vary between 7:30 AM & 10:00 AM according to availability.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Places are not confirmed if full information is not provided.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: Please send a copy of your passport as soon as possible to confirm the places.
- In case of not contracting the transfer, you must access on your own in a trip of 80km. The walkways will not be included in the excursion.
Reviews(26)
This is an incredible once in a lifetime experience. Worth the cost!! The boat trip gave amazing views, as did the walk up to the glacier. We spent ages walking on the glacier, with up close amazing views from various different angels. Great guides, really friendly and knowledgeable. Finished with relaxing walk along the walkways which gave different views of the glacier.
Tour of the park everything was malhavilla, but the mini trekking would be unique experience and was sensational!I would like to congratulate the 2 guides are attentive and friendly and telling the formation of the glacier and take care of us to the end! The views were spectacular , we caught incredible moment that we saw glaciers fell making noise , it was too spectacular ! We captured the video that Pena can only post photos kkkk! It's worth it!
Well-organized and very informed mini trek guides! Lots of bathroom options, good communication. It is a very long day.
I booked a tour at 0730 am and the tour started late and we had to leave earlier and leave the tour because made us late and we had to go to the airport .
Dear MOISES, I would like to thank you for sharing your comments and express our sincere apology for any inconvenience you may have experienced during your tour at the time. The transfer was confirmed from 07:30 AM as detailed in the voucher (between 07:30AM to 08:00AM depends on the location of each hotel). As this is a regular transfer, there are other passengers who take the same vehicle. For this reason, passengers must wait at the hotel reception. In case you need a specific pick-up time, we have private transfer services available. It is always best to let us know that you have a flight on the same day of the tour so we can advise you if we recommend taking the tour. We apologize if this was not clear enough. Thank you for taking the time to write a review, it helps us to improve our services. Thank you for your comments. We are sorry that the information about the transfers was not clear enough. Our product department has already clarified our product description. We hope that, in any case, you enjoyed the tour of the Perito Moreno. Best regards, Lara
I booked a small group tour (less than 10 people) and paid USD 500 for this. But I ended up in a bus tour with 40 people!! The description page on TripAdvisor also says this tour is supposed to no more than 10 people. It took one hour in the morning to pick up all the guests to the bus. And the excursion on the ice was also in large group of 20 people. I tried to contact the vendor, but no reply. I filed a complaint via TripAdvisor and asked for partial refund. The dared to reject the request and told TripAdvisor that my tour was in group of 10. Fortunately, i happened to record my trecking so I finally to got refund.
We are sorry to hear about your disappointing experience with the tour. Upon reviewing our passenger records, we couldn't find any reservation registered for a person in the month of February, nor do we have any record of a refund. We believe that your message might have been left on the wrong company. We kindly request the removal of your comment from our profile to prevent our company from being unjustly harmed. Thank you very much.
Our guide Nico was incredibly friendly and helpful. Some of the other staff were a bit pushy to rush everyone through each section, however overall a great experience
Dear traveler, Thank you for your feedback. We're glad to hear that you had a great time. We apologize for any instances where other staff may have seemed pushy. Your overall experience is important to us, and we appreciate your insights as we strive to improve our service. We hope to welcome you back soon for another great adventure! Best regards, Tangol Tours.
My partner and I went to El Calafate specifically to do this tour. We booked in and received confirmation of our booking. On the day that we arrived at El Calafate we were notified by email that the trip had been cancelled. No good reason was provided. We spent 3 hours trying to get onto another mini-trek but nothing was available. In the end we did not do a Mini-trek. We were extremely disappointed to say the least. It is extremely unlikely that we will ever get back to El Calafate so this opportunity was lost. So if I were you I would not book with Viator for this trip in case you are cancelled at the last minute like us.
The walk was out of this world - a once in a lifetime opportunity. A bit frustrated by the unupdated information on the exchange rate for park entrance, which resulted in us having to use a credit card instead of cash. A bit of a hiccup that left a bad taste about the tour group, and not the tour. The tour was AMAZING 😍
You must do it, you travel to the caulk then you must make the decision to do it and live this experience, it is safe, it is incredible, it is somewhat demanding about the effort, a little high the price but it is worth I take you to catwalks at the end then it's the most complete since you also sail
Querido Pablo! Muchas gracias por contarnos su experiencia. Nos alegra saber que disfrutó de los maravillosos paisajes del sur, recorriendo cada hermoso rincón. ¡Gracias por elegirnos y esperamos que nos permitas acompañarte en tus próximos viajes!
The bus picked us up from our hotel with about 20 other people. Note that the time quoted for bus arrival is really just the start time to commute from hotel to hotel. You will need cash for the park entrance fee -- it is not included in the price you pay online. The trek itself was easy (we're in our 30s and not overweight). The guides were knowledgeable and conduct tours in english or spanish as needed. Save photos on the boat tour for the way back from the glacier. Make sure on the catwalks that you just sit and watch (and listen!) for the glacier to calve. Amazing experience. In general, this was a really cool tour. Worth the money, as it is a once in a lifetime type of experience. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
Dear Traveler, Thank you for sharing with us your experiences in El Calafate! We are pleased to know that you have enjoyed the trekking on the Perito Moreno glacier! Will be a pleasure to assist you in your next visit! Best regards,
