Parque Nacional Los Glaciares Vacations and Tourism

Parque Nacional Los Glaciares (Spanish: The Glaciers) is a national park in the Santa Cruz Province, in Argentine Patagonia. It comprises an area of 4459 sq km. In 1981 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The national park, created in 1937, is the second largest in Argentina. Its name refers to the giant ice cap (the biggest outside Antarctica and Greenland) in the Andes range that feeds 47 large glaciers, of which only 13 flow towards the Atlantic Ocean. In other parts of the world, glaciers start at a height of at least 2,500 meters above mean sea level, but due to the size of the Ice Cap, these glaciers begin at only 1,500 m, sliding down to 200 m, eroding the surface of the mountains that support them. Los Glaciares is a major attraction for international tourists, and has an annual budget of one million dollars (1994). Starting points of tours are the village of El Calafate at the shore of Lake Argentino but outside the park, where the park's administration has its headquarters, and El Chalten village in the northern part of the park, at the foot of the Fitz Roy. Other touristic points in the park include Lago del Desierto and Lago Roca.

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