Patagonia is not an exact place name, but rather a general term for a large area. Located in Argentina, a small part belongs to Chile, it is made up of vast grasslands and deserts, covering an area of nearly one million square kilometers, that is, one-ninth of China.

Every year the famous Dakar Rally, a considerable part of the stages are held in Patagonia. This is the second stop, chosen because of the glacier park, when the heat is dying, what place is more attractive than here?

A FIVE-HOUR TOUR WILL TAKE YOU NORTH TO UPSALA GLACIER AND GRAN BARRERA GLACIER, THEN TURN SOUTH TO SPEGAZZINI GLACIER AND RETURN TO DEVIL'S MOUTH CANYON FOR FIVE HOURS.

It is very famous in the outdoor circle, so there are outdoor stores of various brands from low-end to high-end here, and the most impressive thing is the supermarket, which is very environmentally friendly by using waste cardboard boxes in the supermarket instead of plastic bags after checkout.

Try an ice cream on Libertador Street, which tastes like an Italian gelato. After arriving at the pier, the third floor of the cruise ship has the best viewing position with few people, and the other two floors are crowded with more than 200 people.

Lake Argentina in front of it is claimed to be the largest in the country and the third largest in South America, and it is not even ranked in the top 20 in the world in terms of area alone, but there is a unique gem in the world, which is the continuous glacier!

Unlike glaciers in other regions, the glaciers in the Lake District are still thriving today, growing over hundreds of thousands of years, thanks to the abundant water systems and bad weather in the surrounding area.

There are about 300 square miles of vast ice fields in the south, and the Upsala glacier is the third largest of them and one of the largest glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere, with the entire glacier rising more than 60 meters above the water level, spanning 60 kilometers in length and a surface area of 595 square kilometers, about the size of four Buenos Aires.

SC Johnson stood at the top of the deck, and after about an hour and a half of sailing, the surface of the lake gradually increased and the ice floe became larger and larger, even exceeding that of a three-story pleasure boat.

As the boat slows down, you can admire this masterpiece of nature, and the imagination is always stimulated by beautiful things, especially the crystal clear glaciers......

"Boss, look over there, the two pieces don't look like two dinosaurs that are losing their temper?"

"This piece is like a giant tortoise, lying here for thousands of years!"

"That doesn't look like an Imperial battleship from a Star Wars movie?"

It is rare for Xia Long and Xia Tiger to chirp in the ears, which shows the unique charm of the glacier. From a distance, the snow-capped mountains in front of you are a little different, and when you walk in, you find that the glaciers that grow on the mountain are cut off by the frozen soil.

A huge glacier suddenly appeared in front of you like an ice wall, the visual impact is unforgettable, the three-story yacht in front of it is like a small ant, looking up, finally understand what it means:

Tip of the iceberg!

At least 20 storeys high, stretching for 30 kilometers to the border between Argentina and Chile, it is 200,000 years old, so it is still a young glacier in the glacial world, and it is one of the few living glaciers.

To this day, it is still moving forward at a rate of 30 centimeters a day, and you can feel the breath of the ice age more than 2 million years ago.

The sailors stopped the boat and smashed the ice that had just been salvaged from the lake, put it in their glasses of whisky, and raised a glass to celebrate the journey.

Everyone got off the boat, and the most exciting thing had just begun, the glacier was at their feet, and it seemed that even the cold wind on their faces was tinged with a blue glow. In the distance, the snow-capped mountains, the place where the glacier was born, and the towering summit resembles the castle of the ice queen in a fairy tale, mysterious and magnificent.

Suddenly, there was a roar not far away, and an incredible scene occurred in front of me, a block of ice the size of a car fell into Lake Argentino, and the deafening sound made people feel awe, as if a catharsis that had accumulated for thousands of years.

This is the spectacle of ice avalanches, which can only be seen in summer, and is now even more common, and has been directly linked to global warming for decades.

Many glaciers began to collapse, creating spectacular arches that connect the glaciers to the Magellan Peninsula directly opposite. As the water infiltrates and washes, the lower part of the ice bank eventually collapses to form an arch.

The tour guide is a young man, a college student majoring in geology, with rich knowledge of geological theory, not only leading everyone to walk on the ice, but also explaining a lot of interesting knowledge about glaciers on the way, and is usually responsible for monitoring the daily changes of glaciers for research.

There is a coach in charge of safety and pathfinding in the back, escorting him to safety one after the other. Distribute crampons to the size of each person's foot and start hiking.

This journey through the broad-leaved forest is not easy, there are no artificial facilities on the mountain trail, most of them are people stepping out of the path, after several ups and downs, there is finally an orange tent in front of the base, I thought I was about to reach the end, but in fact I only walked half the way.

Here, a protective belt must be fastened, which acts as a life-saving tool to catch people who accidentally fall into the ice cave. And to keep the glacier clean, the restrooms at the base are the last place you can go to the toilet for the rest of the day.

The next trail is even more difficult, the trail is only one person wide, uneven, and steep, and in some places you even need to use both hands and feet.

After more than 1 hour of hard work, we finally came to the inner edge of the glacier. Re-inspect the crampons and life-saving belts, the blue hole on the glacier looks beautiful, but it is actually very dangerous, such a hole can be up to tens of meters deep, and once you lose your footing, the consequences are unimaginable.

The tour guide demonstrates the skills of stepping on the ice, flat ice water outside the figure, uphill inside the figure, downhill outside the figure, lift your foot and use crampons to plunge into the ice, grasp it firmly and change to the other foot, so that it is not easy to be scraped and fallen by your own crampons when walking.

With a crunch, Johnson cautiously stepped on the first step, the team began to march very slowly, the coach took the lead in clearing the way with an ice axe, and the guide broke off and corrected his posture.

SC Johnson was in the middle, chanting the mantra and fumbling for walking skills, but thanks to the sharp crampons, he was able to climb the steep slope of nearly 60° with ease.

It's not the first time I've played with ice, but it's really climbing icebergs here, good guys, you have to step on your feet hard, you have to pull your hands hard, it's very tiring!

The winds carry the dust from the surrounding mountains to the edge of the glacier, so it looks a little dirty at first, but the further you go into the heart of the glacier, the purer it becomes......

Over time, the glacier becomes denser and harder, and the bubbles gradually decrease, and when the density reaches a certain level, the sunlight is scattered. Red-orange light, which has a longer wavelength, is less scattered, while blue light, which is shorter, is easily scattered, giving the glacier its attractive blue color.

As we progressed, surprises struck us and the discovery of a subglacial waterfall hidden in the glacier's blue hole. This is where the protective belt you wear comes in handy. The ice cave is very deep, up to tens of meters, and everyone grabs onto the protective belt, and Johnson leans out to observe the waterfall in the ice cave.

It took only a few kilometers on the ice to reach the heart of the Moreno glacier in four or five hours. Look at the ice and snow world in front of you, everything around you is so crystal clear, and the small river formed by the melting snow water is a dark blue, flowing through the gap of the glacier, holding it and drinking it, refreshing and sweet.

If yesterday's distant view was already shocking, then today's down-to-earth walk on the glacier has made SC Johnson even more amazed by the magic of nature.