Argentina
Lago Posadas
Twin lakes, one turquoise, one sapphire, divided by a land bridge laced with marine fossils.
Lago Posadas in Santa Cruz Province is divided by a narrow sand bar from the adjacent Lago Pueyrredón, and the two lakes are different colours — Posadas is turquoise from glacial flour, Pueyrredón is midnight blue from depth — and the combination of the two tones across the same plateau, with the Monte San Lorenzo rising to 3,706 metres behind them in perpetual cloud, is a landscape that has appeared in Argentine photography since the 1970s without ever becoming commercially known. There is one estancia on the lake shore and nowhere else to stay within 100 kilometres.
Lago Posadas and Lago Pueyrredón are connected glacier-fed lakes in the Perito Moreno Department of Santa Cruz Province, separated by an isthmus of glaciofluvial deposits that gives the combined lake its distinctive two-tone appearance. The turquoise colouration of Lago Posadas results from the high concentration of glacial flour — fine rock particles ground by glacial erosion — suspended in the meltwater from the Monte San Lorenzo ice fields. Monte San Lorenzo at 3,706 metres is the second-highest peak in Patagonia after Fitz Roy and the highest peak in the Santa Cruz Province, surrounded by glaciers that feed both lake systems. The estancia on the lake shore, one of the most isolated working cattle operations in Argentine Patagonia, accommodates travellers and serves as the only base for Monte San Lorenzo expeditions from the Argentine side.
Solo
Lago Posadas is for the Patagonian traveller who has done the Chaltén-Calafate circuit and wants the unmediated version — a two-tone glacial lake with no tourist infrastructure, a road that requires care, and a landscape that rewards the patience to drive six hours from the nearest city. The Monte San Lorenzo approach adds a mountaineering dimension for those who want it.
Couple
The Lago Posadas-Pueyrredón combination — two lakes of completely different colours visible simultaneously from the isthmus viewpoint, the San Lorenzo ice fields above — is the kind of landscape that produces a specific, private quality in people who find it without guidance. The single estancia provides the necessary anchor.
- The two lakes share different altitudes and mineral contents — their colours are visibly distinct from the road above.
- Marine fossils in the land bridge sediments confirm the area was under ocean 70 million years ago — exposed at the surface.
- The drive from Perito Moreno town covers 150km of unpaved road — guanacos outnumber people on the entire stretch.
- Condors nest in the cliffs above the western shore — morning thermals lift them level with the roadside viewpoint.
Cordero patagónico and trout at the tiny settlement's only restaurant.
Mate and tortas fritas on the lakeshore, watching the two blues meet at the isthmus.
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