San Rafael Lagoon - expedition in Patagonia Express launch from Hotel Puyuhuapi*

Breathtaking. Spectacular. These are the adjectives for the San Rafael Lagoon: magnificent natural scenery offered in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes. Passage through the austral fjords aboard the Patagonia Express Catamaran on the way to the San Rafael Lagoon and Glacier is a one-of-a-kind experience. The trip begins early in the morning when the guests board the Patagonia Express at the lodge pier. The trip takes approximately 7 hours, sailing on crystalline waters through Patagonian channels and around numerous islands, large and small. The experience is a delight for the senses. Enjoy the exceptional spectacle of the breathtaking Andes Mountains in the distance, covered by luxuriant forests.
On a zodiac through drifting icebergs to the glacier
Waterfalls plunge into the sea and twinkling light beams through the clouds to dance on the water. If you’re lucky, you’ll be treated to a playful encounter with dolphins.

Once we reach our destination, you’ll board a zodiac raft and make your way through the drifting icebergs to approach the awe-inspiring glacier. You can drink whisky chilled with ancient glacier ice that floats in the lagoon.

This ice mass that slides down into the sea is part of the 1,742,000-hectare San Rafael Lagoon National Park that was declared a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1979. It is located 600 kms. south of Puerto Montt, in the southern part of the Moraleda Channel, at the foot of the Northern Ice Field, where the enormous San Rafael Glacier ends. Its ice is more than 300,000 years old and originates 4,058 meters a.s.l on Mount San Valentín in the Southern Ice Fields of the Andes Mountains.

History of San Rafael Lagoon and glacier
The San Rafael Lagoon was discovered in 1575 by Bartolome Diaz-Gallardo while exploring the “Gulf of Sorrow.” It was named San Rafael because it corresponded to the saint honored by the Catholic Church on the day of Diaz-Gallardo’s arrival. Today the lagoon is approximately 16 kms. long and 11 kms. wide, and it was described for the first time only 300 years ago by the Spanish sailor Antonio de Vea. At that time the glacier had not yet reached the shores of the San Rafael Lagoon; it was necessary to disembark and walk through the valley to touch the iceberg wall. Later, in 1873, Captain Enrique Simpson confirmed that the ice mass had consumed nearly a third of the lagoon. The glacier had advanced more than 10 kms. in just 200 years. It soon began a fast retreat, however, and in 1950 the ice mass barely penetrated Laguna San Rafael by 2 kilometers. Receding at a rate of 150 to 200 meters per year, the iceberg’s front had already begun to fall back toward the valley by 1982, and in 1985 the ice wall had pulled almost half a kilometer farther back, evidence of the process of the general dissolution of ice masses observed throughout the southern hemisphere. It is likely that within just a few more years the ice mass will have completely withdrawn from the lagoon, radically altering the landscape of the area.

Laguna San Rafael wild life
The Laguna San Rafael is surrounded by a wooded perimeter with abundant vegetation, including notros, ciruelillos, canelo, mañío, tepas, guaitecas cypress and coigüe (from Chiloé and Magellan). There are also many plants that grow on the decomposing organic mass. Local flora includes coicopihues, chilcos, chaurra, nalcas, moss, and a species of veronica that can only be found here and in New Zealand.

Birdlife is varied and includes the pato anteojillo (bronze-winged duck), caranca (kelp goose), wild goose, tordo (bay-winged cowbird), remolinera (bar-winged cinclodes), ringed kingfisher, carancho (crested caracara), and the black-necked swan. Some of the mammals are the pudú, güiña (wildcat), chungungo (southern sea otter), culpeo fox and huemul. There is also wonderful underwater life that stands out for its variety and color, such as starfish, mollusks, and a rare species of coral.

Sea water meets with fresh water from melting ice and rain in the San Rafael Lagoon. It is not particularly rich in organic nutrients, which is reflected in its relative shortage of fish. One of the most common species is the Robalo, a type of sea bass that can endure the extremely low temperatures in the San Rafael Lagoon.

Glaciers: San Quintin, San Rafael and Gualas
Just 10 kilometers south of the lagoon, the San Quintin Glacier is nearly inaccessible by land, making it one of Chile’s least known and least explored glaciers. It stretches for more than 50 kilometers and ends in the Gulf of Sorrow and provides a glimpse of how San Rafael must have been in its prime. While the San Rafael Glacier is clearly in retreat, the San Quintin Glacier appears to remain steady, moving neither forward nor backward. A third glacier, the Gualas, descended from the same source and also reached the sea to form a large lagoon whose borders were erased by the force of the ocean. Today only traces of its existence remain.

The San Rafael Lagoon is located in before a major geological fault in an area where the earth’s crust undergoes constant changes, especially of collision and displacement. The region seems to have experienced a series of earthquakes, most notably in 1837, 1910 and 1930. As a consequence, the land closest to the Andean massif fell several meters. As a result the water covered the land previously occupied by dense forest, as the enormous number of lifeless tree trunks now shows.

Approaching the San Rafael Glacier
Getting close to the glacier is no easy task. It requires first sorting your way through a large number of icebergs that hide their enormous size underwater. The closer you get to the great wall of ice, the more breathtaking it becomes. And when a large chunk of ice breaks loose from the glacier it crashes into the lagoon with a thundering roar. Another magnificent spectacle is the way an enormous mass ice, a gigantic chunk the size of a building, rises from the base of the glacier.

After detaching from the glacier, the icebergs float freely in the Laguna San Rafael and change into incredibly beautiful shapes resembling magnificent crystal sculptures. Beautiful as they may seem, icebergs can also be deadly. The expression “the tip of the iceberg” refers t the fact that 9/10 of the iceberg remains underwater and unseen and thereby present a considerable danger to the ships that must carefully navigate around these icy threats.