Ushuaia in winter is a different city: the mountains behind it turn white down to the water, the forest goes quiet, and the southernmost ski area of the Andes opens a few kilometres away. A short week combines the classics of the End of the World, the national park and the Beagle Channel, with a day on the slopes and a winter night in the woods.
Day 1 · Ushuaia
Highlight · A free afternoon among the town's museums and the trails at its edge.
The afternoon is free for the town's museums or the trails that start at its edge.
Night · Ushuaia
Day 2 · Tierra del Fuego national park and the Beagle Channel
Highlight · Rocky islets crowded with cormorants and penguins around the Les Eclaireurs lighthouse.
Twelve kilometres west, the Tierra del Fuego national park runs along the last stretch of Ruta 3, a forest of lenga, ñire and notro that opens onto Laguna Verde and the Lapataia river and bay, where shell middens mark the camps of the canoe peoples. A last stop at Lago Roca. In the afternoon a boat leaves the pier for the Beagle Channel, past Isla Bridges to the Les Eclaireurs lighthouse, among rocky islets crowded with imperial cormorants, Magellanic penguins and gulls, with albatrosses, petrels and skuas passing overhead.
Night · Ushuaia
Day 3 · Cerro Castor
Highlight · Skiing at the southern tip of the Andes, on 23 runs and through a lenga forest.
A full day on the snow at Cerro Castor, 27 km from town: 600 skiable hectares, 23 runs for every level, off-piste terrain and a lenga forest, at the southern tip of the Andes, where the snow is among the best and the season among the longest in South America.
Night · Ushuaia
Day 4 · Snowshoes in the Tierra Mayor valley
Highlight · A torchlit path to a hut in the woods, and the way back by husky sled.
Walk · Tierra Mayor valley · 30 min
A free day in town. At nightfall, snowshoes for a walk across the Tierra Mayor valley, along a path lit by torches to a hut in the woods, where dinner is on the fire with mulled wine, and a guitar comes out afterwards. The way back is by husky sled.
Night · Ushuaia
Day 5 · Ushuaia
Highlight · Departure from Ushuaia at the end of the winter week.
Flight out of Ushuaia.
