Qualla: Perito Moreno National Park

Perito Moreno National Park: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is no gate to pass through, because there is no one here to collect a fee. Perito Moreno National Park has no roads, no visitor center, no campgrounds, no services of any kind - just 126,830 hectares of Andean mountain and steppe, emptied of everything but the wildlife and the wind. Most people confuse it with the celebrated glacier that shares the name; this is the other Perito Moreno, far to the north, one of Argentina's oldest and least-visited parks. To reach it you abandon the road entirely and walk in. For the self-sufficient traveler who wants genuine solitude at the end of the Earth, almost nowhere delivers it so completely.

Perito Moreno National Park: The Other Perito Moreno

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

First, the confusion worth clearing up. The park that draws the crowds, with its great wall of advancing ice, is the Perito Moreno Glacier - and that lies inside a different protected area, Los Glaciares National Park, well to the south. Perito Moreno National Park is its quiet, ...

Perito Moreno National Park: Where Waters Split

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The land here is built of mountains and valleys, and it performs a quiet geographic trick. Two ranges cross the park, one running east to west and the other north to south, and tucked among them lie eight lakes. The largest, Lago Burmeister, sends its water east toward the distan...

Perito Moreno National Park: A Quiet Abundance of Life

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Emptiness of people does not mean emptiness of life. The park shelters 24 mammal species, a handful of reptiles, and around 115 kinds of birds. Some, like the tuco-tuco - a burrowing rodent common across South America but little known elsewhere - go about their lives almost entir...

Perito Moreno National Park: The Reward of Getting There

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Reaching this park is the hard part, and that is the whole point. No town sits anywhere near it. The closest Argentine road passes some 80 kilometers from the boundary; a Chilean road comes within about 10 kilometers and can make a better starting point. Many trekkers stage out o...