The end of the world as we know it

ushuaia

We snatched about one hour’s sleep before heading off for our dawn flight to Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost city in the world.

A frontier town on the very southern tip of Argentina, jutting out into the icy Beagle Channel, Ushuaia certainly felt like a far-flung outpost of civilisation. There was an atmosphere unlike anywhere else we had ever been and it’s hard to put a finger on anything specific as to why it had such a special feel.

The fact that it was still quite light well after midnight, the slushy swirling currents of the Beagle Channel and the knowledge that Antarctica was now only 1000km away must have all added to the end-of-the-world sensation, along with the fact we were rugged up in all our layers despite being here in the middle of summer.

midnight

We celebrated Christmas for a second time on Christmas Day itself with a visit to a ‘tenedor libre’ (literally a ‘free fork’, but ultimately all-you-can-eat Argentina style). As one might expect we rather disgraced ourselves, not helped by the vast selection of ice cream flavours we were forced to self-scoop.

xmas nibbles

xmas cheer

The following day saw us up bright and early to take to the water, a lovely boat ride out into the gorgeous Beagle Channel. From the channel we were afforded our best view yet of the surrounding landscape and realised why it felt quite so isolated – with the water to our front we were cut off from behind by an imposing mountain range, reaching almost to the water’s edge.

land ahoy

Our boat took us out past lounging and lolling colonies of cormorants and sea lions, big, fat blubbery folk piling themselves up on top of each other for warmth. A walk around one of the blustery islands and a choppy ride back as a storm loomed followed, before it was time to procure supplies for the first of our treks with Sally, a four-day ‘practice’ hike through the mountains and valleys behind Ushuaia.

lolling

the lighthouse at the end of the world

We set off cheerfully the next morning, pretty sure we are on the right track despite a little confusion over where the walk may begin. The valley setting was spectacular – lush green meadows, a wide babbling brook and ice-capped mountains on both sides, but the going proved more than a little sloshy underfoot. As the day went on and we peeled off into a side valley, we reached the first of the promised glaciers after a slushy trudge through snow.

aslushing we will go

atop

From here the options involved heading most of the way back down into the valley and up into another side valley for the evening’s campsite, or trying our luck on a cross-country ‘short-cut’ that would take us more directly there.

We opted for the latter, settling on what seemed the most likely direction. After another hour or so, passing up and over a ridge that afforded spectacular views out over the channel, we reached a deep drift of snow stretching right across where we suspect the path should be.

Ben dropped his pack and went off to explore whether there was a way down into the valley from here that wouldn’t involve tracking back, reporting back in about 40 minutes that he had found the way.

Retracing his steps, however, we took a slightly different way down through the thick trees and reached a path that seemed to be too minor for the one we were seeking, so we turned right in the hope that it would meet the ‘main’ path. An hour or so later we finally reached a fork, only to realise it was the one we were at earlier in the day when we decided to go to the glacier rather than simply head straight up to camp.

By now it was about 9pm (still quite light thanks to being so far south and only days past the solstice) but we had to decide between trying to set up camp down on the boggy flats or to turn on our heel and head up the way we had just come down.

We opted for the latter and discovered that the camp was only about 20 minutes past where we had first joined the path, but of course in the other direction. The ‘minor’ path turned out to be the main one after all, this just obviously wasn’t a very well-travelled hike.

lady and the tramper

Tramping through the boggy terrain that surrounded the lake near where we were to look for our pitch, we were too exhausted to even try and miss the puddles. Hungry, soggy-footed and tired, we finally reached the lake, only to realise the whole area was absolutely soaked, and on a steep incline.

By this stage it had begun snowing, the day that had started bright and blue now rather white and gloomy. But after some fraught scouting we finally found a spot beneath some trees that was flat enough and dry enough for us to pitch. We had brought two tents along, but only had the energy to set up one, the three of us all climbing in after dinner and sleeping very soundly.

It would be lovely if that had been the toughest day of the walk, but it was really just the warm up. The quite delightful powdery snow that greeted us in the morning turned into more of a freezing sleet and rain through the day. Trudging to the next campsite, we were absolutely drenched to the bone, with similar trouble finding somewhere to set up our tent – the only places we could find that were not under inches of water were beneath some decidedly sketchy looking old trees, with far too many fallen branches around to have us feeling very safe in this wind-scoured valley.

This was the point at which we also discovered that the path we were following was now officially closed. Given we had been planning to loop all the way around the back of the mountains and back to town from the other end, this meant we had two options. We could either turn back the next morning, or have a bit of an explore around the area, see how far we could get down the path and then return to the same camp that night. This meant we would at least avoid having to pack up a wet and muddy tent and carry it all day, but I think we would have all quite happily carried heavier packs as a trade-off for it to stop raining. Rain is no big deal by itself, but when the temperature is struggling to reach about 2 or 3 degrees, it doesn’t exactly add to the fun.

We opted to stay out and explore, winding our way through some pretty glades and crossing back and forth over the stream, looping back to camp before nightfall. Getting us through all this was the much-discussed return visit to the ‘tenedor libre’ that would be our reward – just how juicy the food would be and bets as to who would be able to try the most help-yourself ice-cream.

rio

On day four the weather improved just enough that we were able to walk back to town a little more cheerfully. Finally back in the warm embrace of our hostel, with every thoroughly saturated item of clothing and our tent hanging across our room to dry, we could kind of understand Sally’s wonder at just what people saw in hiking. Assuring her that this was not exactly a great example, that we too would probably not have gone out if we had known the weather was going to be quite so feral, she still didn’t seem entirely convinced.

kind of makes it worth it

We had originally planned to stay in Ushuaia two more nights, seeing in the end of the year at the end of the world, but the paucity of buses out of town meant we had to actually leave on the morning of December 31, sadly dragging ourselves away while the hostel was already bouncing into cheerful, all-you-can-eat-and-drink party mode.

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