Patagonia

A landscape of incredible beauty

Carlos, our Chilean guide, suggested we switch our seats to the right side of the plane for our flight from Punta Arenas to Santiago. “If the skies are clear, yeah,” said Carlos, “you’ll see the ice fields.” Did we! For days we’d been eying these ice fields off in the distance, at the end of a lake, trailing off into the mountains beyond ... but from above you could really get a sense of their immensity. Massive sheets of ice, flowing over and around mountains, their cracks and crevices speaking to motion that unfolded over a time scale that we could only imagine. From my window seat, I could see some of the biggest glaciers in the world.

Chalk another one up to the wisdom of our guides on this highly curated journey we recently took through wild Patagonia. From the moment we stepped off the plane in Buenos Aires and into the welcoming embrace of our local guide everything had gone like clockwork on our South American adventure. After a quick visit to Buenos Aires we paired up with our trip leader and our traveling companions and set off on a 16-day dash across southern Argentina and Chile, with stays in Tierra del Fuego; Los Glaciares National Park; and Torres del Paine National Park.

The trip we were on was called “Ultimate Patagonia,” one of the signature trips of Berkeley, California-based adventure tour company Wilderness Travel. They promised a whirlwind tour of the greatest hits of Patagonia. They hand-picked the best places to visit, the best hotels, the best meals, the best hikes. They strung these jewels together on a trip that took us scurrying across this magical, wind-blown landscape by plane, bus, boat, and foot. Unlike some tours that merely take you to the edge of a landscape, this one pushed us out into it, with 12 days of hiking, including multiple hikes of 10+ miles. It wasn’t for the faint of leg.

I’ve delayed writing about this trip because, frankly, I was having a hell of a time putting the drama of this place into words. Where else have I seen glaciers the size of entire mountain ranges? Where else have I experienced winds of this intensity and persistence? Where else have I seen mountain ranges of such beauty—showcased by light and clouds that were constantly in motion—that with every turn we took we gasped anew at the beauty? What do you say about a landscape of such staggering, breathtaking majesty?

My words will not do it justice, so let me instead offer a few photographic glimpses. I did not take my good camera along on the trip; I didn’t want to spend one minute worrying about photography when I could simply breath in the beauty. These are strictly iPhone photos, unedited.

I studied geology during my first few years in college. I’m no stranger to imagining the immensity of time that it takes for tectonics and glaciation to shape the world. But I was still gobsmacked and breathless when I drew the curtains on my hotel room along the shores of Lago Gray and looked across the lake to see Paine Grande and the Cuernos del Paine ranges. The contrasting formations told of massive intrusions of molten rock into many millennia of deposits of sediment, then tectonic uplift and glaciation occurring many millions of years apart. My concerns seemed petty and utterly insignificant alongside the passage of time and the ability of the earth to reshape itself. That morning, I felt so incredibly peaceful and grateful simply to be alive in that moment. All other concerns faded away.

We saw foxes, penguins, pygmy owls, and more cool birds than we could count.

We topped a ridge and encountered a lake the color of which we’d never imagined.

We slept at the foot of some of the coolest mountains in the world (see the reflection in the glass of our hotel, El Pilar, the closest lodging to Fitz Roy?). We walked out the front door of our hotels and into some of the most spectacular scenery in the world.

Did I mention there were glaciers?

We saw and enjoyed the best of what Patagonia had to offer, and all the while we were shepherded by our gracious, intelligent trip leader, José Argento, and a host of day guides who helped us understand all that we were seeing. A good guide can make or break a trip like this, we’ve found. Get one who is a little too controlling or intent on having his way and it can be pretty trying. But José was a gem, the best we’ve ever had.

Our fellow travelers were top-notch as well: smart, affable, experienced, and ready to explore. It’s a weird experience to self-select into a group based on your demographics, your relative wealth and hunger for adventure. Looking around at this group of people was like looking into a mirror: we saw lawyers, doctors, engineers, techies, all within shouting distance of our age. We were traveling with slightly different versions of ourselves. No wonder we liked everyone: they were us.

I don’t want to say the entire trip was perfect. Sixteen days with a group of strangers—including too many hours on a bus riding on bumpy dirt roads—can get to you. So too hiking with a group of people with varying degrees of fitness, especially when you’re an impatient hiker like me¹.

If you’re like us and you have Patagonia on your bucket list of places you’d like to visit, I’ll just say this: find a way.

1. Impatient may be pulling punches. I’m a pushy pain-in-the-ass when I want to go fast, but our guides were gracious enough to let Sara and I off the leash when it made sense.