The Upsala Channel and Its Icebergs

The Upsala channel fills with icebergs because the glacier at its head is a fast one ending in deep water: its western front calves into a channel about 600 m deep, and in 2000 and 2001 the ice near the front was moving about 1,600 m a year. Every block that breaks off drifts down the arm. That ice is what the boats sail among on the way up the channel, and it is also why the route changes from day to day.

Where the icebergs come from

A calving glacier loses ice where its front meets water: blocks break off the ice cliff and float away. At the Upsala, Skvarca, Raup and De Angelis (2003) measured surface speeds of about 1,600 m a year near the front from satellite images of 2000 and 2001, and a calving rate averaging 1,710 m a year at the western front over the same images. Lo Vecchio and colleagues (2025) measured the ice still moving about 1,825 m a year at the western front in 2015 to 2018. Sakakibara and colleagues (2013) estimated the glacier’s calving flux at 0.47 to 1.47 km3 a year.

UNESCO describes the far end of Lago Argentino as the place where glaciers meet and launch icebergs into milky grey water.

When the ice closes the channel

It has happened before. A national park study of the 1990s records that the break-up of the Upsala’s front and the large masses of ice that came off it practically blocked the Upsala arm with icebergs, so the main lake excursion lost its landing at Bahia Onelli. The navigation limit set in 2016 and 2017 has a different cause, unstable slopes along the channel, but the effect for visitors is similar: the boats stay well south of the front.

Day to day, the ice decides the line. On Solo Patagonia’s own explanation there is no fixed distance to any front: the captain decides on the day by the glacier’s activity, how much floating ice there is and where, the wind, which moves the boat and the ice, and the visibility. In front of the Upsala the floating ice can be thick enough that the way has to be chosen carefully, and when ice blocks a passage the captain can wait, look for another line or change the order of the day.

What it means for a cruise

• Expect ice, not a fixed view. How far up the channel the boat goes, and how much ice is in it, changes by the day.
• The front stays far off. Reviewers of the Upsala cruises describe the glacier from a distance; can boats get close has their estimates.
• The best close-up ice is elsewhere in the day. On Solo Patagonia's cruise, from US$285 (checked November 2026), the Spegazzini front follows the Upsala channel.
• Refunds differ by seller. SALUM TOUR & TRAVEL's day offers a full refund if the Upsala channel cannot be visited. On GetYourGuide, every cruise here can be cancelled free up to 24 hours before.