Lake Roca

Information

It is a lake, and also an area belonging to the Los Glaciares National Park and Reserve, which includes the lake.

To get there from El Calafate:
- By car: first take Avenida del Libertador in a westerly direction, and continue out of the city on asphalt for about 43 km. You reach a fork where you take the gravel road on the left (the one on the right goes to the Perito Moreno glacier). It is 28 km along this road to the park ranger station, and then 2 km more to the first of the campsites (be careful because there are a couple of places where the road opens up, it is advisable to use a GPS).
- By public transport: during the high summer season (particularly in January and February) there is a bus company that leaves from the bus terminal in El Calafate and drops off at one of the campsites on the lake.

At one point along the route you start to see Lake Roca, as the route starts to run parallel to it. There are good panoramic points to see the lake, and we also have these attractions:
- El Huala Campsite: it is a free camping site. When I went there, there were no supplies or services, there were only some mobile toilets. It is in a forest area with a sector on the shore of the lake.
- Senderos Pinturas Rupestres (Rock Painting Trail): the access is on the road, approximately 1.5 kilometres from the El Huala camping site. It is a 200 metre long path that leads to some rock paintings. It is of low difficulty, since there is only a slight ascent along the way. It crosses a wooded area, and at the end of the route there are some large stones with the paintings on them.
- Further on is the organised Lago Roca campsite, which has tables, provisions, toilets and showers. It has access to the lake shore.

For birdwatchers, in all this area you can see typical species of the region, such as the black-faced ibis (Theristicus melanopis), upland goose (Chloephaga picta), rufous-collared sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis), long-tailed meadowlark (Leistes loyca), austral blackbird (Curaeus curaeus) and austral thrush (Turdus falcklandii). On the shores of Lake Roca, the least seedsnipe (Thinocorus rumicivorus) is often seen.