Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina Conditions Report: Jagged Peaks and Frothing Ocean

This is my first ever trip to the far south of South America.  I’ve been blown away.  I’ve been in Ushuaia (the furthest southerly city on Earth), Argentina in Tierra del Fuego for a week now and the scenery is intense.  The winds can be even more intense.

We’ve witnessed the Beagle Channel (named after Darwin’s boat the Beagle) as smooth as glass as well as frothing like a rapid dog.  This place is a land where the phrase – if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes – truly applies.

We’ve been skiing all week here in the Martial Glacier zone just outside of town.  The Martial Glacier has big rolly polly terrain, chutes, steeps, cliffs, jagged peaks, and wide open bowls.  If you had enough time, you could get yourself into some amazing terrain.

I recommend this place to any hardcore backcountry skier.  The month of September here would be stupendous.

Two days before we arrived on November 1st, the upper mountain received about 8 inches of new snow.  By the time we got up on that new snow, it has been cooked and ended up pretty damn sticky.  The next day, we headed up again into a new bowl and encountered similar skiing conditions.  On our hike up we experienced blistering sun, then it snowed an inch in an hour, then white out fog, then back to a perfect sunny day.  Absolutely stunning (as in stun gun) weather.

We’ll be back up there tomorrow and the next day before our boat to Antarctica sets sail on evening of November 6th.  We can’t wait.  Antarctica updates to come.

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