Half a world away, planned in 2 months. No tour buses, no local guides, and 3 friends who don’t speak a word of Spanish.
…An adventure by any definition.

Three childhood friends on our second major trip together following Adventure Alaska 2017.

Day 2 of our overnight backpacking hike. This day started at 6am in an attempt to catch the famous sunrise light casting it’s orange glow on Fitz Roy. Camped at the base, our morning hike would send us 1.5 miles straight up the mountain in the dark to Laguna de los Tres. Loose footing and steep switch backs proved to be one of the most difficult scrambles of the trip, but the view was well worth the effort. A stream of headlamps on the trail ahead would show that we were not the first on the trail that day.
This second day would be our last in El Chalten as we’d be completing the two day hike, and while the views at the base of Fitz Roy were nothing short of majestic, we had a long route ahead of us. Day 2 of our hike would see another 16 miles to complete the loop and bring us back to the car. Our total 2-day backpacking trip would take us 25 miles and up 6,000′ of elevation gain with our 40lb packs.

After our hike, and on the information that the road we needed to take would not be open until 9pm, we sought respite at the Lago Grey Hotel for some hot food before departing. Once the road was opened we set course for Punta Arenas, one of the southern-most cities in the world. We booked a hotel on the way, and arrived in Punta Arenas at about 3am. What we found was not the warm and welcome villages we had seen in El Calafate and El Chalten, but rather in a part of the city that for the first time on this trip, we did not necessarily feel safe in. Upon arrival at our hotel, we were greeted with a host who spoke no English, but we were still able to figure out one thing… they did not have a room for us. On this information we decided to find some place to park the car, break out the tents, and camp for the night. What we found was miles and miles of road closely confined by livestock gates, and fenced driveways. We drove for an hour, unable to find a suitable place to sleep before finally deciding to go to the national park, an hour away for the night.

Upon reaching the national park, which was an hour down winding, narrow, canyon dirt roads with no guardrails, we were greeted with yet another locked and closed gate, and no parking area. Upon some further exploration, the best place we were able to find was a small offshoot to this dirt road, ~50kms into the woods, with just enough room to park the car in some brush, but nowhere to set tents. We made the difficult but necessary decision of sleeping in the car for the rest of the night…. 3 grown men in a Toyota Corolla with 400lbs of gear.

With the car parked, we found the silver lining of the morning… a night sky like none of us have ever seen before. A briefly clear sky and a set moon brought out the Milky Way in a way I hadn’t known was possible. While this amazement was short lived before the rain set in, it somehow made the drive worth it.

Route to the End of the World

After a day of rest in Punta Arenas, we set course by car for “Fin del Mundo”, The End of the World.

While the map showed a road all the way to the Southernmost lighthouse in mainland South America, what we found was an unfinished road, and an 8-mile round trip hike over a deep loose stone beach. What would become a much harder and longer hike than expected allowed us access to an isolated lighthouse at the end of the world that very few tourists get to visit.

Hiking the Perito Moreno Glacier

Thanks to some very helpful bilingual employees at the America del Sur Hostel in El Calafate, we were able to get ourselves a last minute booking for a Glacier Trek on the nearby Perito Moreno Glacier, one of the only stable glaciers left in the world.

We enjoyed what was by far the best view for lunch I’ve ever had in my life, followed by a few hours of glacial trekking, and a surprise we weren’t quite expecting at the end. As we approached the end of our trek, we were greeted by a cart of whiskey on the rocks. While that by itself wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary, the fact that the rocks were in fact part of the glacier made for a drink and experience that we won’t soon forget.

The End of the Trip

Day 9 in the magical land they call Patagonia that makes up the Southernmost part of Chile and Argentina, and we were on our way home. This trip had taught us many things. We learned to backpack, we learned to drink from the streams and rivers, how to pretend we could speak Spanish, and navigate a truly foreign landscape.

It’s a trip none of us will soon forget. If there’s one regret I have it’s the same regret I have with almost all of my trips, that we couldn’t have stayed longer.

For now we take the lessons learned, the experiences gained, and set our sights to the next grand adventure.