Balmaceda and Serrano Glaciars Boat Excursion

Discover the Navigation to Balmaceda & Serrano Glacier

This is a navigation through Ultima esperanza fjord at Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, to visit the Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers. We will see these ice giants also local flora and fauna along the way.

This Navigation leaves in the morning from the pier at Puerto Natales and takes us to two glaciers, called Balmaceda and Serrano. These are part of the Bernardo O’Higgins National Park where you can visit only by boat. This park has an area of 4,300,00 hectares (16,600 square miles), which makes it the largest in Chile and one of the four largest parks in the world. It includes the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the largest mass of ice on the American Continent.

Our trip to and from the end of Last Hope Sounds lasts arround six hours and includes an excellent view of the old freezer plant at Puerto Bories, several small ranches, ice-fields and waterfalls, a colony of cormorants whose common name is Imperial Shag as well as a sea lion rockery.

From the boat we will also be able to see the local flora, which includes forests of trees with local names such as coigue, canelo, ñirre, and lenga. After three hours of travel we expect to reach the Balmaceda glacier, which is located on the east side of the mountain bearing the same name. At the end of the fjord the boat will dock to allow passengers to take a half-hour walk along a lake to the viewing point for the Serrano glacier. Later in the afternoon we will return to Puerto Natales by the same route.