Dr. Dirtbag

Cerro Martial is the highest point along the ridge of peaks north of Ushuaia, above and to the west of the Martial Glacier, a popular tourist attraction visible from town. I had one more full day in Ushuaia, and one morning of good weather, so I wanted to do a peak that, if not exactly ambitious, at least did not have a trail to its summit. A track on Peakbagger made it a certain and not particularly adventurous thing, but it would still cap the trip with some sense of success and accomplishment.

I left my pseudo-hotel again by bike, taking my puffy jacket, rain jacket, and crampons this time, but leaving my ice axe behind. Instead of parking at the base of the Martial Glacier road, I rode all the way to the base of the ski hill. I thought I would have to start hiking there, but a decent dirt road continued from there, saving me another mile or so of walking and promising a fast, fun descent. I passed some poor unfortunate walkers on the way up, locked my bike to the sign, then headed up the trail. The weather, while not exactly clear, was at least decent up high.

The official trail to the glacier viewpoint stays on the east side of the valley, but another trail, closed off yet marked with yellow-painted stakes, climbs along the west. I followed this trail until where it fades out of existence in a talus-field, then headed more or less straight up the slope west toward Martial’s south ridge. It looked steep from below, but proved no harder than class 3 in a few places; the crux may have been avoiding the bits of high-angle swamp. The trip report associated with the track on Peakbagger mentioned climbing a glacier or snowfield, and since I had only minimal snow gear, I figured the rock would be easier. I trended gradually north, but ended up on the west ridge a ways before the summit. The wind was mostly from the northwest, so I was happy to be traversing a protected southeast-facing slope as I made my way toward something that looked like a summit.

Reaching my supposed summit, I was dismayed to see another broad and slightly higher point farther north, which a belated look at my map confirmed was the true summit. The connecting ridge was along the edge of the layered uplift forming the range, and therefore either slabby or crumbly to either side, often steep on both, and serrated on top. I made my way carefully along the crest and right-hand side, traversing ledges were I could and carefully scrambling up and down crumbly stuff covered in fresh snow where I could not. Once at the final saddle, I easily hiked up a scree slope with bits of trail, apparently back on-route.

The summit had a nice sign with the name Monte Martial and an elevation. Many of the surrounding peaks were covered in clouds, but I could clearly see the next ridges east and west, and had a view down to town and the Beagle Channel. I caught a brief glimpse of Cerro Tonelli to the north, enough to confirm that it was both clearly higher and an arduous traverse away. The clouds were whipping in from the northwest fast enough that I did not want to play around up high much longer, so I soon retreated, deciding to try something more like the standard route on the way down. I followed a ramp along one of the layers, which led to the ravine south of the main Martial Glacier, and crossed back to the slope I had climbed on the way up. This route crossed one small bit of glacier or permanent snowfield, but it was buried in enough fresh snow that I felt no need for crampons. I saw many more tourists out making their way up the trail as I jogged down to my bike — Argentinian tourists are remarkably tolerant of inclement weather. I blasted by still more as I coasted down the ski area, then had a fun pavement descent back to my lodging.

Flying home was the usual ordeal. I rode to the airport with my folded-up bike box, finally getting a view of the distant, glacier-clad Darwin Range on my only truly clear day in Ushuaia. I boxed everything up near the tiny airport’s ticket counter, trying to stay out of the way of the milling, jostling cruise ship passengers. While I was packing up, an enormous and slow-moving line materialized, and I almost missed my flight before flagging down an airline employee. “Why didn’t you respond when I asked earlier?” she said. “Lo siento,” I replied, while thinking “because you were speaking rapid Spanish in a noisy crowd, and I was trying to tune out my surroundings so the crush of bovine humanity did not drive me insane.”

The takeoff from Ushuaia would have had great views, but my last-minute ticket and checkin ensured I had a middle seat, so I saw only flashes of the peaks. My clearest view was actually on my neighbor’s phone screen, as she recorded the whole thing out the window. We are spoiled at how easy it is to travel halfway around the world — a few hours to Buenos Aires, an overnight flight to Miami, and another few to Denver — but I still grumbled at having to schlep my “checked” baggage between every leg. The bit in Miami was particularly aggravating, as I had to take it a couple hundred yards from the American baggage carousel to another American employee who put it on a different conveyor belt. The airport “helpfully” offered $9 roller carts for this unnecessary trip, a reminder that while Chile is notable for capitalist rent-seeking and nickel-and-diming, it is but the student, and America is the master.

So that was Patagonia. I doubt I will return, because life is short and the world is large, but if I did, I would do several things differently. First, I would avoid the Carretera Austral as much as possible. While it was an impressive feat of nationalist road-building and no doubt a spectacular ride in its infancy, it is a beaten-in tourist trench at this point, with locals completely numb to visitors and well on their way to becoming souvenir hawkers. I would travel more side-roads, cover less north-south distance, and bring more gear to deal with difficult cross-country travel. Patagonia has a lot of genuinely unexplored terrain, something long gone in the American West. Everything here is mapped, climbed, documented, and easily searchable. In Patagonia, particularly west of the Carretera and south of Coyhaique, there are a lot of unnamed and probably unclimbed peaks. They are not big and sheer enough to attract Real Climbers, but are ideal for someone with more interest in the unknown than renown.

Cerro Guanaco

After a pleasant and relaxing evening at Cerro Cornu basecamp, I took my time packing up in the morning for a short ride into Ushuaia. The afternoon was forecast to be wet and windy, but the morning would be relatively pleasant, and I only needed half a day. I returned to the pavement of Route 3, then made a gentle climb up the Rio Lasifahaj past the ski area at Cerro Castor (“beaver” in Spanish). The mountains became progressively more interesting as I headed west, with sheer faces and substantial glaciers to the north, and impressive pinnacles on Monte Olivia to the south. I had to stop a couple of times to top off my rear tire, which was low on sealant, but the climb was otherwise uneventful. The descent into Ushuaia was fast and fun, and I even got to draft a truck for awhile, though some sort of “road safety” pickup honked at me angrily for doing so. I stopped at the first YPF, bought a minimum of food and used their hot water machine, then settled in to while away the afternoon and figure out where to sleep. I ended up buying groceries in a miserable 40-degree drizzle, then camping in the closed Rio Pipo campground on the west end of town. I was not supposed to be there, but there was plenty of space away from the road, all of which I had to myself, and no one bothered me.

The next day’s forecast was unsettled, so I made modest plans to visit the end of Route 3 at Lapataia Bay and hike Cerro Guanaco, a viewpoint peak with a trail to the top. I rolled out fairly early to avoid annoying anyone, and rode up to the legal free campground near the Fin del Mundo train station (a prison train now converted for tourism). I stashed the trailer there before shoving some stuff in my daypack and continuing to the park entrance, where I paid the exorbitant 5500 ARS fee ($15 at the graymarket exchange rate), then continued to Lago Roca, where I locked my bike to the trailhead sign.

The trail to Cerro Guanaco skirts the glacier-blue lake for a short distance, then climbs steeply through the woods to the northeast. A sign said that I was not allowed to embark upon this strenuous later than noon, but I sensibly ignored it, as did a few dozen others I met headed up as I was heading down. The trail climbs admirably steeply through the woods, then crosses a flat swamp before making a long traverse across a talus slope to the summit. The previous night’s storm had refreshed the swamp, and deposited a few inches of fresh snow on the trail above, but enough people had already hiked the peak to make a clear track. I passed a few people on the way to the summit, but had it to myself for about five minutes, enough to enjoy what views I could before two loud young French guys arrived. On a clear day, Guanaco would have an excellent view of the Darwin Range to the west, but that was almost completely covered in clouds. I did, however, manage to see Ushuaia to the southeast, and the somewhat higher Cerro Condor across Lago Roca.

I skipped back down the trail to my bike, then continued to the end of the road at Bahia Lapataia, stopping along the way to take grainy photos of a giant red-headed woodpecker. There is a boardwalk hike to a lighthouse from the road’s end, but I was sufficiently put off by the crowd of tourists freshly disgorged from their bus not to want to linger. I admired a touring Harley from Columbia, took some photos of the ubiquitous Malvinas/Falklands signage, then was about to leave when the tourbus driver offered to take my photo next to the sign. Then I rode back to my trailer, set up my tent, and thought about how to spend my remaining few days. With wet weather every afternoon, I knew I needed at least one night in a hotel or hostel to dry out before boarding a plane. I would also be more able and motivated to climb peaks if I had a warm and dry base, so I decided to pay for a place to stay. This ended up being far more expensive than I had expected or than it should have been ($50/night), as the cheaper options were booked, but probably worth it.

Cerro del Medio

With a costly dry basecamp in Ushuaia, I could go trail running in the snow or rain without worrying about how to warm up and dry out afterward. Unfortunately the weather was still too unpleasant in the afternoons to do anything big, and I needed to prepare for the flight home, but I still had time in the mornings to tag minor peaks near town. Cerro del Medio is barely a peak, but it has a trail and a view, so it was a good objective for a day with a marginal forecast and much to do.

I rode my bike from my weird hotel to the base of the Glaciar Martial road, then locked it up at a trailhead sign and followed a powerline cut past a few road switchbacks, relying on my phone to guide me through the minor trail maze. I noted a bridge on the map, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it crossed a deep slot canyon, narrow enough that it could probably be jumped without the funky wooden structure. Beyond, the trail climbed consistently through the woods, then followed a fence east before crossing a bog. People had thrown logs and branches into the muck to make crossing easier, but the recent rains and snows had refreshed the muck, so it was challenging to cross without completely soaking my feet.

Beyond the bog, the trail improves in the woods, then deteriorates as it climbs alpine moss before almost completely disappearing in a talus-field. However there are yellow-flagged stakes leading through the rocks, and bits of trail where the scree is loose enough to erode. It was chilly out, but the trail ascends a south-facing bowl, and was therefore protected from any wind. The final traverse to the summit, however, was exposed to a vicious west wind, freezing my eyeballs and making me wish I had brought more than just my hoodie. I ran to the summit, took a few photos and looked around for a few seconds, then ran back to shelter. The rest of the run down to my bike was uneventful, and the descent through the woods was smooth and gradual enough to make it fun and easy to get up some speed.

Showered and dried, I set out into town to find a bike box. Bike shops must receive their inventory somehow, so the normal way to fly with a bike is to ask around at shops for old boxes. Sometimes you have to pay, but most shops will give you a box for free, since they are otherwise scrapped. There are many shops in most cities large enough to have an international airport, so locating a box is rarely a problem. However, while Ushuaia has about 80,000 people, it has only three bike shops. Worse, in mid-March more bike tourists are flying out than in, and this net outward flux depletes the box supply. I therefore wanted to give myself a couple of days to track down a box.

Unfortunately bike shops close for the siesta, so I had plenty of time to explore the town and play tourist. Ushuaia has a bunch of monuments along the waterfront, so I rode up to the navy base, where a single ship was docked, then made my way back downtown, learning a bit of history along the way. The first group of monuments were to early Antarctic explorers, as the tip of South America is the obvious launching point, being much closer to the continent than New Zealand or South Africa. I am not sure how realistic the busts were, but they had character, being bug-eyed, haggard, or grim rather than generically heroic. They honored both Argentinians and various Europeans who had achieved various “firsts” in the Great White South.

The second group of monuments was a war memorial for the Malvinas/Falklands. Most Brits probably don’t even remember that these islands off the coast of Patagonia are part of the Empire, but Argentina has not forgotten. I saw signs saying “Las Malvinas son Argentinas,” with a silhouette of the two islands, north of Bariloche on my last trip, and they were more plentiful farther south. Some were even a bit more aggressive, with one memorably stating “Las Malvinas son y sera Argentinas.” Your day will come, British Imperialist scum… In any case, the naval part of the war was partly based out of Ushuaia, so it made sense for there to be a monument. This one had a ring of poster-sized photos of troops doing various things including matéar (drinking maté together). At the center was a giant silhouette of the islands, and a marble wall with the names of the dead, like a small version of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

Once I had whiled away the siesta, I returned to the bike shops, where I was informed that there were no boxes. I turned to an appliance store near one of them, and while they did not have any large TV boxes, they did have some sturdy cardboard that I could use in a pinch. I bought box cutters and packing tape, then rode out to the airport to see if someone had flown in with a box that had not yet been destroyed. I did not see one, but did meet a man flying in with a bike, a gift for his nephew. He generously offered to let me use the box once he was done, and I took down his email to get in touch. I also asked the janitorial staff if they had any boxes, and while they seemed helpful and told me to show up early the morning of my flight, I did not like my chances of finding one at the last minute. The last part of a bike tour is always expensive and stressful, but it only happens once.

With no decent food sources in Torres del Paine, I had to move in some direction. If I wanted to return to the park, I could ride a short day to Cerro Castillo to resupply, but I felt I had already pushed my luck in terms of not paying for entry or camping, and the weather forecast looked unsettled. I therefore decided to head south for Puerto Natales, with the option to hike Cerro Tenerife along the way. I needed a bit more day-food to do this, so I headed over to the snack bar for some calories. Everything was as depressingly overpriced as expected, with the standard cookie rolls costing three times what they would in an ordinary store. In terms of calories per dollar, the cheapest source was some repulsive raspberry-flavored Cheetos, produced by adding artificial flavor, color, and high-fructose corn syrup to the same basic food-slurry (corn and palm oil) that forms the foundation of other puffed snacks. I bought two rolls of cookies and two bags of those things, then smooshed them down to better fit in my trailer.

Once back at the main road, the ride west and south started with a long climb on bearable dirt. Thankfully it was not too windy in the morning, and I had decent views of Almirante Nieto and the peaks west of the Torres. As it turns south and heads out of the park, the road passes several large lakes, including Lago Pehoe, where there is a campground and café. The wind was starting to get annoying, so I stopped in for a $12 microwave pizza before continuing south along the Rio Paine. The wind had been mostly helpful or moderate so far, but turned into a vicious crosswind on the final flat to the park exit, where it had a clear path down from the icefield along Glaciar and Lago Gray.

There was another climb getting over to Lago del Torro, at the top of which people could stop to get a view of the distant glacier and take photos of each other almost getting blown over by the wind. Thankfully it abated and was generally not harmful on the long ride along the lake’s west shore, then up and over to Lago Porteño. Where the hike up Cerro Tenerife starts at an estancia, I turned east on a side-road and immediately found a convenient open gate. I almost set up my tent there, but noticed a horse tethered to a tree and thought better of it. I continued down the road, then doubled back, finding a sheltered spot in some trees between the fence and road. I got my tent set up before the wind got too rowdy, then listened as gauchos rounded up a bunch of cattle in the area where I had almost camped, whistling and shouting wordlessly. They probably would not have minded my presence, but I was glad to be on the other side of the fence.

I woke to rain the next morning, and sat around in my tent hoping for it to stop so I could climb the peak without too much misery. I finally gave up late in the morning, only to have the sun come out shortly after I finished packing up. Oh, well… The road toward Puerto Natales was remarkably miserable: the first part had been freshly watered by a road crew, turning the usual dust to awful mud that coated everything, and after that it became particularly rough washboard. Tired of the abuse, I pulled into Cueva del Milodon, a small park about which I knew nothing. I was looking around for a place to sit when Robert walked up, having just stopped himself. Together we checked out the enormous main cave, which was home to prehistoric hunters and the remains of prehistoric megafauna including giant ground sloths.

Weirdly, the park also had several miles of bike trail, so I stashed the trailer and rode it with Robert, who had no trouble keeping up with all his touring gear still attached. As much as I like my bike and trailer, I was getting jealous of his rugged, capable touring rig. We loitered at a picnic area afterward, then he went off to find WiFi while I rode the remaining distance to Puerto Natales. The campground I had chosen at random had Cerro Fitzroy on its sign for some reason and, stranger still, had several signs in both English and Hebrew. The older woman running the place was Chilean and spoke only Spanish, but I think the owners may be Israeli. Most of the visitors seemed to be headed either to or from one of the treks in Torres del Paine, but there was one French family touring on a crazy setup with two semi-recumbent tandems and a child trailer. I also met Seba, an interesting young guy who was inspired by my bike-mountaineering exploits.

Puerto Natales is a touristy but pleasant town with terrible weather, and I ended up hanging out for a few days to recover and resupply. I made the mistake of trying to ride to the top of Cerro Dorotea one day, only to find that it was ringed in fences and private property (of course), then get absolutely drenched and frozen by a passing squall on the return. I also spent most of an afternoon talking to an interesting Spanish woman working remotely in one of the internet cafés downtown. As Eric Beck said, “at either end of the social spectrum there lies a leisure class,” and the same is true of nomads. They had the kind of high-powered jobs (software and pharma) that let them travel in style and work fully remote, while I travel in a way that requires very little money. Though she worked in pharma, she was interested in cognitive science, which led me to dust off parts of my brain that I haven’t used in over twenty years.

I was hoping to meet a friend in Puerto Natales, but after not hearing anything for awhile I was starting to feel stale. The upcoming weather was nasty, so I took advantage of a non-rainy morning with a tailwind to head for drier climes and Punta Arenas. After the initial grind away from town, the road turned southeast and aligned with the wind, and I began having a grand old time cruising the pampas. I saw isolated storms roving the plain in the distance, but none hit me. Once the road turned purely east along the Argentine border the wind became even more favorable, and I gained even more speed. I spotted a cyclist in the distance, who proved to be Robert, his top speed limited by his lower gearing. We rode together for awhile, stopping at the gendarmeria at Morro Chico for water. Morro Chico is a broad volcanic plug standing by itself in the plains, and I had thought of climbing it on my way by, but decided to keep going instead.

The wind became less favorable but not quite adversarial as the road turned south. There are several refugios in this section, built by someone and apparently available to anyone caught out in this harsh and shelterless plain. I was looking forward to staying in one in particular that was supposedly in fairly good shape, but I reached it to find that both it and its older neighbor were occupied by gauchos. Their mumbly, toothless spokesman said I was welcome to camp outside, but the cabin was his. I pitched my tent in the lee of a pile of old wood, Robert pitched his nearby, and we spent a disappointing but not over-windy night.

I had expected to take three short days between Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas, but with the excellent wind I would need only two. I made good time to the gas station at Laguna Cabeza de Mar, then hung out there for awhile watching a large storm pass to the south. Another cyclist, on a road bike, was hanging out as well, and we talked a bit as we watched some rheas or ñandus peck around and take dirt baths outside. We both took off once the storm started dying down, and he quickly left me on his smooth, skinny tires. I caught Robert, and eagerly took him up on his offer to split a place in Punta Arenas. Camping would be tough in the big city, and it would be good to have some dry comfort before braving Tierra del Fuego. Punta Arenas is one of the oldest towns in Patagonia, established around 1850 as a port for wool exports and a stopover on the Strait of Magellan. With the opening of the Panama Canal and decreased interest in wool, there seems to be little reason for it to still prosper, but it seems to be doing well as both a tourist town and a port. I wandered around some, then cooked town food for dinner and prepared to ferry across the Strait to Porvenir in the morning.