Chile’s National Forestry Corporation has permanently banned hikers from a Patagonian glacier that was declared unstable after a sizeable piece of the glacier calved.
The Explorers, or Exploradores, Glacier in Laguna San Rafael National Park, in the southern region of Aysen, has been a popular ice-hiking destination for over two decades, reports euronews.com.
Government hydrologists studied the glacier for two weeks following an incident when a huge chunk of ice on the glacier calved. They found that it was at a dangerously unstable inflection point.
Explorers has thinned by 0,5 metres per year, and drone footage found that the meltwater lagoons on top of the glacier had doubled.
“There are evident risks and uncertainty regarding the behaviour of the glacier,” said the Forestry Corporation as it permanently banning ice-hiking on October 31. “Conditions are not safe for ecotourism activities on the Explorers Glacier.”
Tour operators and tourism organisations assumed the calving was natural for the constantly changing landscape, and have taken the ban as an economic and emotional blow.
