Читать книгу Torres del Paine. Chile's Premier National Park and Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park онлайн

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The southern portion of the Paine massif is bisected at its centre and towards its eastern side by the two river valleys, the Valle Francés and the Valle Ascencio. Both the Río Francés and the Río Ascencio drain south into Lago Nordenskjöld, which then drains into Lago Pehoé and Lago Toro; on the western side of the massif the huge Glaciar Grey feeds Lago Grey and the Río Grey.

THE SOUTHERN PATAGONIAN ICE FIELD

The Southern Patagonian Ice Field or Campo de Hielo Sur is the largest expanse of ice in the southern hemisphere outside Antarctica, stretching about 350km north to south and covering an area of about 16,800km2 – some 14,000km2 of which lies within Chile (predominantly within Bernardo O’Higgins national park), the rest being in Argentina. The average elevation of the Southern Ice Field is about 1400–1600m, although several of the glaciers descend to sea level in the west, and it reaches well over 3000m in places. Largest among its huge glaciers is the Pío XI or Bruggen glacier (the longest in the southern hemisphere outside Antarctica), some 64km long and covering an area of 1265km2; others include the O’Higgins (820km2), Jorge Montt (510km2), Tyndall (331km2) and Grey (270km2) glaciers in Chile, and the Viedma (978km2), Uspala (902km2) and Perito Moreno (258km2) glaciers in Argentina.