Best time to visit Perito Moreno Glacier: season by season

Almost everyone who searches for the best time to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier is holding one of two wrong pictures. The first is a northern-hemisphere calendar: July reads as the warm month and January as the cold one, and in Argentine Patagonia it is the other way round. The second is the idea that a glacier has an open season. It does not. The wall stands where it stands in every month, tours leave El Calafate in every month, and the boardwalks face the ice in every month.

What the calendar actually decides is the length of your daylight and the number of people on the balconies beside you. Those two things, more than anything else, separate a December visit from a July one.

December to February is the Patagonian summer. This is the season with the most usable hours in the day, and it is the season the long listings were designed around. $588 runs 12 hours, $399 eleven, $450 and $520 ten. A day that size needs light at both ends of it, and summer supplies that generously this far south. The trade is company: the boardwalks are at their busiest, and the small-group departures — $399, $145 and $588 are all marked small group — are the first to go. Several listings ask to be booked at least a day or three days ahead even in quiet weeks; in January that head start matters much more.

June to August is the Patagonian winter. Daylight is short, and the shape of the day changes with it: the eight-hour guided visit becomes the natural booking, and the twelve-hour trekking day becomes an awkward one. What you get in return is space. The balconies that hold a crowd in January hold a handful of people in July, and the sound of the ice carries across an empty circuit. Low winter sun along the wall is also what many photographers come for.

March to May and September to November are the shoulders. They are the practical compromise, and they are underrated. Daylight is still long enough for a full day at the ice, the boardwalks are calmer than in peak summer, and availability on the trekking listings is easier. If your dates are flexible and your priority is standing on the ice rather than standing in a queue for a viewpoint, look here first.

One thing does not change with the calendar: the wind. It is a permanent feature of this part of Patagonia and it is felt most on the open balconies facing the water, where there is nothing between you and the wall. That is a packing question rather than a season question, and the page on this site about what to wear answers it in detail.

Summer, December to February. Long daylight, every listing running, and the widest choice of trekking departures. The ice walk on $399 sits inside an 11-hour day without feeling rushed, and $588 can stretch to 12 hours and still get you back to El Calafate in the light. The cost of all that is crowding on the boardwalks and dates that disappear early.

Winter, June to August. Short daylight, quiet balconies, low light along the wall. The eight-hour guided days are the right fit — $60, $69, $65 and $62 all run that shape — and you are far more likely to find a place on the date you want. What you give up is the comfortable spread of daylight that a 12-hour trekking day needs.

The verdict. If the walk on the ice is the reason for the trip, come between December and February and book $399 as early as you can: approximately one hour hiking on the glacier with crampons, a cruise in front of the wall, the forest and the boardwalks, with 852 reviews at 4.8 behind it. If you have seen crowds before and would rather see the wall in silence, come between June and August and take $69 — 2,735 reviews at 4.7, hotel pickup, a bilingual guide and the boat option when you want it. Both are the right answer; they are answers to different questions.

1. Reading the calendar upside down. This is the southern hemisphere. December, January and February are summer; June, July and August are winter. Booking a "summer" trip for July gets you the shortest days of the year.
2. Assuming the glacier closes in winter. It does not. All 16 listings are sold as year-round days out of El Calafate, and the walkways are included in every one of them.
3. Booking a 12-hour trek in the shortest weeks. $588 and $251 are 12-hour days. They belong in the long-daylight half of the year.
4. Leaving a summer booking until you arrive. $399, $145 and $588 are marked small group, and several listings ask to be booked at least 10 hours, 24 hours or 3 days in advance.
5. Planning the glacier for the last day of the trip. Keep a spare day behind it. Free cancellation is shown on the listings that offer it, which makes moving a date far easier than losing one.
6. Packing for the temperature instead of the wind. The open balconies face the water with nothing in the way. A windproof shell earns its place in every month of the year.