Southern Patagonia
Southern Patagonia is southernmost section of the Bicycle Patagonia Tour, covering Argentina's Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego provinces and Chile's Magallanes region. Southern Patagonia features vast windswept shrub-lands, massive glaciers and largely unchartered archipelagos. The lakes and rivers this far south are typically milky-turquoise in color, a result of their glacial ancestry. Water on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego must be treated before consumption—North American beavers, introduced to the island in 1946 in an attempt to create a fur trade, have contaminated water sources.
Monte FitzRoy, Torres del Paine, and Isla Navarino boast exceptional trekking circuits. Be prepared for swarms of tourists in the first two areas; however, less people make it as all the way south to Isla Navarino.
Route Summary
The Southern Patagonia section of the Bicycle Patagonia Tour picks up on the north shore of Lago O'Higgins, where a ferry transports passengers and bicycles (read: no vehicles!) across the glacial lake. From the lake's south shore, the tour re-enters Argentina via a stretch of single-track trail to Lago del Desierto. After crossing Lago del Desierto, the Tour passes the jagged peaks of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, reaching the regional hub of El Chaltén.
The tour reunites with Ruta 40 on the wide-open steppe en route to El Calafate and Glaciar Perito Moreno. Back into Chile, the route veers northwest through Torres del Paine, where the steppe meets the Andes in a spectacular array of lakes, glaciers and wildlife. Cruise along Ruta de fin del Mundo to Puerto Natales, then on to Punta Arenas, where ferries depart for Isla Navarino's Puerto Williams (the southernmost settlement on earth) and windswept Isla Grande Tierra del Fuego.
Tierra del Fuego (land of fire) is divided between Chile (40%) and Argentina (60%) and civilization is almost non-existent. As the tour heads east across the island toward the Argentine border, an optional detour passes South America's only colony of King Penguins. Back in Argentina, the tour cruises through Río Grande (the province's industrial center) and Tolhuin (home to a massive bakery that has a reputation of helping out travelers-by-bicycle) before one final climb to the Paso Garibaldi mountain pass and a descent into Ushuaia.
Explore Routes & Towns in Southern Patagonia
Weather
Notoriously harsh westerly winds prevail through Southern Patagonia. The area has both subpolar oceanic and tundra climates. The further south you go, the colder it will get.
Torres del Paine's default forecast is cloudy, to the frustration of many trekkers trying to snap a photo of the Torres. The weather is known to change suddenly—it can be rainy, cloudy, windy, sunny all in one day. Ferries have been known to delay services because of inclement weather, so make sure you have extra provisions in case you need to camp out a day longer than expected.
