Canon de las Ovejas

The bus to Pto Natales leaves on Wednesday. Today’s Monday so I decide to explore the last of the trails that originate in Ushuaia. I weave my way through the omnipresent schoolchildren who just completed the trail. The way goes along a stripped railbed which transitions into a muddy pasture road. This leads to a waterfall. I cross a beautiful, marshy, sloping horse pasture with bogs and stands on dead trees and fallen logs against a backdrop of craggy peaks.

This is the start, a sign indicates, canon de las ovejas, so intrigued I follow the pasture road into a valley surrounded by tall peaks and towards a snowy range in the distance at the end of a stream. I climb a ladder over the pasture fence and find markers for a trail. It gently slopes up into the forest paralleling the stream through more swampy terrain. The way turns sharply downhill and then out of the woods for good and onto a sizeable scree slope. The trail then follows narrow banks in the scree undulating up the slope until it finally continues up the valley again, where I want to go.

The yellow markers guide me across the exposed slope intermittently through bushes across more scree and over steep slopes of lingering snow. I dig my boots into the snow hoping I don’t slide into oblivion. My boots, after drying in the past day, are soaked once again.

I reach the range with small glaciers clinging to the rockface and narrowing to thin waterfalls cascading down the cliffs into the canyon. One large scoop of snow has fallen off one of the glaciers causing a big scar in the glacier. The trail winds up to a pass and I cross some snow to the top.

It was getting late, 7pm, as I retrace my steps through the horse pasture. The horse eyes stare at me either out of curiosity or malice, but not wishing to test the correct interpretation I step gingerly past them. I make it back to Cruz del Sur at 9, dinner is in full swing, but I manage to cook and eat a decent meal for once.