San Rafael Glacier, Tidewater glacier in Northern Patagonian Ice Field, Chile

San Rafael Glacier is a tidewater glacier in the Northern Patagonian Ice Field that flows into a saltwater lake dotted with floating icebergs. It descends gradually over roughly 20 kilometers, creating a massive ice formation that dominates the landscape.

Enrique Simpson of the Chilean corvette Chacabuco visited the glacier in 1871, during a period when Catholic missions, searches for the mythical City of the Caesars and geographic surveys brought expeditions into the fjords. Since that visit its front has retreated about 10 km. Earlier, some researchers have argued that the survivors of the wrecked HMS Wager under John Byron reached Chiloé via Lake Presidente Ríos rather than the Río Témpanos, since Byron's writings say nothing of the glacier.

The glacier lies within Laguna San Rafael National Park, created in 1959 in the Aysén Region. The name comes from the Spanish for Saint Raphael. Visitors reach the ice by boat across the Laguna San Rafael, which the glacier feeds before its meltwater drains through the Moraleda Channel.

The site is best reached by boat tours departing from Puerto Chacabuco or Puerto Rio Tranquilo, with travel times between 4 and 8 hours. The best visiting season runs from October through April, when water and weather conditions are more stable.

The glacier's front has retreated about 10 km since Enrique Simpson visited it aboard the corvette Chacabuco in 1871. Its calving face is the tidewater glacier closest to the equator, and the ice descends from a mean altitude of about 1,442 m to lake level.