Argentina

November 6-29, 2009

November 17: Cerro Tronador: Ventisquero Negro

At the Ventisquero Negro lookout, a large viewing area allows tourists to get a great look at the moraine-encrusted "black glacier" (ventisquero negro), an offshoot of Glaciar del Manso on the upper slopes of Cerro Tronador. The Ventisquero negro is actually a reconstituted glacier formed by the snow and ice that break off from the Manso glacier and fall down below. A lagoon is formed by the melting glacier and the viewing platform itself is built on a moraine of dirt and rocks left by the glacier.

A tour bus was there at the same time as us initially and one of the women came over to talk to us. She had seen us hiking with Christopher and Samantha and was missing her grandchildren as she was on a 3 month tour in South America. We got to talking and it turns out that she was from South Mountain which is just south of Ottawa and not too far from where we live! It's a small world...

Once the tour bus left we had the entire viewing area to ourselves and as we took tons of photos, Samantha had fun playing in the sand. The 2 horses we had seen earlier came by to graze and when it was time to leave Rubby had fun laughing at one of the horses who stubbornly stood in the middle of the road to move.

Panoramic from the lookout.

Ventisquero Negro interpretive sign.

In the panoramic you can see the parts of the glacier identified in the sign.

The glacier tongue and lagoon.

Rubby and the kids with another view of the melting zone of the glacier.

The ice chunks are like works of art.

More chunks of ice and snow in the lagoon.

Christopher and Rubby with the melting ice chunks.

Layers of dirt deposits in the ice.

We noticed a cross on top of the hill in front of the mountain.

A view across the lagoon... we can't see much of the mountains with all the clouds.

A little bird.

The snowy slope is called the accumulation cone where chunks of snow and ice fall down
from the manso glacier and reconstitute into the Ventisquero Negro (black glacier).

View with both the accumulation cone, the reconstituted glacier, and the melting zone.

At the end of the lagoon is the moraine - the dirt pushed out by the glacier.

Samantha having fun playing and drawing in the sand.

And acting silly of course!

We found the horses from earlier again.

Samantha watching the horses.

We tried hard to photograph the glaciers atop Cerro Tronador but the clouds and blowing snow made it almost impossible. Here is one of the better shots with the Manso glacier at the top right.