Located in the south part of the Cordillera Blanca, its one of the glaciers left in the tropical areas of South America; the glacier is around 8 square kms in size, and around 4km long with a terrestrial snow ending, the glacier is retreating quickly, it has lost 22% of its size and 15.5% on its ice mass in the last 30 years. The glacier occupies an Andean peak around 5250masl and so has steep, cliff like edges, with heavily crevassed areas characteristic of a chirque glacier.