The first expedition begins at the very bottom of the map — Ushuaia, on the island of Tierra del Fuego, the last city before Antarctica. El Fin del Mundo.
Here the Fuegian Andes run straight into the sea. Glacier-carved granite peaks and knife-edge ridgelines rise over hanging valleys, moraine-dammed lakes and a maze of fjords and channels that splinter the land into fingers.
Southern beech forest — lenga and ñire — climbs the lower slopes before giving way to bare rock, scree and permanent snowfields up high. The Beagle Channel threads through it all, with the Martial Glacier hanging directly above town.
Sub-polar oceanic: cool, wet and famously windy the whole year through — this is the heart of the roaring forties, and the wind is a constant companion.
Our February window is the heart of the southern summer, with 17-plus hours of daylight, temperatures in the 40s–50s°F, and weather that can swing from sun to sleet and back within an hour.
Expect jagged black peaks streaked with snow standing over turquoise glacial lakes, sub-antarctic forest tumbling into the channel, and low golden light that lingers for hours.
On a clear day the view reaches across to the mountains of Chile and, to the south, the open Southern Ocean — the final horizon before Antarctica.
Remote, rigorous and genuinely fun — days spent moving through terrain most people only ever glimpse from a ship, with the reward of standing somewhere almost no one gets to.