We left our campsite on Lago Fagnano and headed southwest to our southern-most destination, the city of Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego National Park.
Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego with a population of ~80,000 and claims the title of the world’s southernmost city (I would think this debatable depending on how “city” is defined). Nevertheless, it is in a stunning location, bounded on the north by the Martial mountains and on the south by the Beagle Channel. In addition to being an administrative center, Ushuaia is a light industrial port and major tourist destination – massive tour boats visit here on a regular basis; indeed, during our visit a ship the size of a small city probably carrying 5 thousand or more passengers was in port.
The Beagle Channel was named after the famous British ship HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, that first reached the channel on January 29, 1833, during its maiden voyage surveying Tierra del Fuego. The crew of the Beagle included none other than Charles Darwin who served as naturalist on the expedition and who would chronicle the trip in his book “Journey of the Beagle”, which served to inspire his development of the theory of evolution by natural selection that transformed science and our understanding of the natural world – indeed, arguably the most significant contribution to the biological sciences since the enlightenment.
We stopped in Ushuaia for a resupply but mostly just passed through en route to our destination, Tierra del Fuego National Park, located just beyond the city. The Park encompassing 243 square miles was established in 1960 and is the official southern terminus of the Pan-American Highway and the so-called “end of the world” as they like to claim.
We spent 3 nights in the Park and managed 2 long day hikes. Our first hike was through the Patagonian Evergreen Beech forest along the shore of an inlet and out to the Beagle Channel. Big and gnarly beech trees (due to the incessent winds) and some great birds, including the beautiful Magellanic woodpecker (think Pileated woodpecker), were some of the highlights. Here’s a few pics:
Our second hike was to the top of the 3,500 foot Cerro Guanaco, which afforded spectacular views of the Beagle Channel and all the surrounding peaks. This hike was quite strenuous, rising 3,500 feet over a distance of 4.5 miles (think Oscar pass outside of Ophir for you Dolores folks). Beech forest with some giant trees gave way to some gnarly forest and eventually to some spectacular apline grasslands and colorful bogs before the incredibly steep ascent to the peak. Here’s a few pics:
OK, that’s all she wrote for Tierra del Fuego National Park.. Next stop, a quiet spot along the Atlantic coast at Cabo San Pablo. See you there!
Just Love the colors of the sky and mountains! Hiking looks beautiful.