Isla Navarino or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bog.

Our final destination on our trip through Patagonia was Isla Navarino.  This island is just across the Beagle Channel from Ushuaia and belongs to Chile.  The town of Puerto Williams is a small Chilean naval base on the island.  Puerto Williams is the farthest southern permanent settlement in the world.

Puerto Navarino is a tiny border post directly across from Ushuaia.  One agency runs a small boat from Ushuaia to Puerto Navarino daily.  Otherwise the only other connections to the island are by air or sea via Punta Arenas.

On Isla Navarino there is a number of rustic treks available.  The most popular is a five day trek called "Los Dientes de Navarino."  Since we only had a few days left we did another trek that started the same way but after the first day cut off to the south.  The name of our trek was "Lago Windhond."  It was a three day trek.  We climbed up through the dientes (teeth) and to the back side of the island.  From there we continued to Lago Windhond with a view all the way to Cape Horn.

Our first summit on top of Cerro Bandera.  The flag flies on the cerro to remind the Argentines whose island it is.

The tiny painted markers we would end up searching high and low for several days.

Overlooking Los Dientes de Navarino and Lago del Salto.

We arrived at the pass between los Dientes.

On the summit of Montaña Bertinelli.  From this point you can look south from the island to Cape Horn.

Coming down the cliff face of Montaña Bertinelli.

Lost in the bogs.

Camping at Ex-Refugio Beaucheff.

Warming our feet post bog.

After our three day trek through bog, stones, forests, snow, lake, beaver dams, mud, more bog, up mountains sides, down cliff faces, and not another person in sight we made it back to Puerto Williams.  The next day we took a small plane back to Punta Arenas and quickly had another connection back to Santiago.  The trekking on Isla Navarino was the most unique thing I have ever done and it is the memory that will stick with me of seeing Patagonia.

Magellanes y Tierra del Fuego

After Torres del Paine, we continued further south yet.  First we spent a little time in Puerto Natales.  We went to La Cueva del Milodón.  Puerto Natales, before becoming the launching point for treks to Torres del Paine, was famous because in 1895 Hermann Eberhard found the remains of a giant ground sloth or mylodon.  Later in this caves, remains from other prehistorical animals and evidence of early humans were discovered as well.

We continued to Punta Arenas, said our good-byes to Tommy, Sarah, and Edmundo, then Colin, Eva, and I  moved on towards Ushuaia.  We left the mainland to the island of Tierra del Fuego and crossed over from Chile to Argentina.

Camping in Ushuaia.

Just shy of 5000 km to the Bolivian border.

Other than tourism, Ushuaia has a big industry of King Crab fishing.

After Ushuaia, we again crossed back into Chile to the even more southern island of Isla Navarino.  I will cover that in the next blog.  From there we flew back to Punta Arenas.  The last thing we did before leaving Patagonia was go and see the penguins in Punta Arenas. 

The W

The more popular part of the trek is the front part of the circuit affectionately named the W after its shape.  We did the W on days 5-8; starting at Refugio Grey until Laguna Amarga; where we started our journey.

Up close and personal with Glacier Grey.

The results of the 2012 forest fire.  This was part of the W I saw before the fire.  Once a beautiful sub-arctic forest is now a wind-swept landscape.

Eating lunch after a really hard 100km wind hike at Paine Grande.

El Cuerno peaking out over Lago Skottsberg.

Into the Valle Frances

Enjoying wine at Refugio Cuernos.

Stones stuck into the roots of a fallen tree after the dirt has washed away.

Los Torres peaking out from the clouds.

Refugio Las Torres.

On the road back to Laguna Amarga with the view of the Torres.

Wild Guanacos at Laguna Amarga.

After 8 days, 134 km, 8 Snickers, 1200 meters in elevation change, 7 camping sites, 100 km/hour winds, 2 rainstorms, 20 kilos of food, 3 injured knees, 1 broken tent pole, and 0 showers we completed the circuit!