Ephemeral beauty

A four-day trek around the Huemul Massif in Los Glaciares National Park in southern Argentina brings experienced hikers right to the edge of the southern ice field. This huge mass of glaciers, once part of the glacial Patagonian Ice Sheet, now forms the largest continuous mass of ice in the Southern Hemisphere outside of Antarctica. After hiking along this incredible natural landscape for two days, I reached Lago Viedma, on whose shore sculptural chunks of ice break into the water out of a massive glacier. From my campsite, I had a magnificent view of these shining turquoise ice specimens that were slowly breaking apart right in front of my eyes.

Lago Viedma (Argentina), January 2018