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Rock Climbing
Photograph by Bobby Model
A rock climber using the freestyle technique called bouldering takes on a sheer rock wall in Argentine Patagonia's Paso Superior. Patagonia's thousands of breathtaking Andean peaks attract mountaineers from novice to world class.
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Cerro Torre
Photograph by Jimmy Chin
A hiker climbs a rocky slope at the base of the jagged Cerro Torre Massif in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina. The sheer granite peak, so treacherous it was thought to be "unclimbable" until a team summitted it in 2005, rises more than 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) from the glacier at its base.
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Torres del Paine, Chile
Photograph by Skip Brown
A woman guides her horse through a wind-blown valley in Chilean Patagonia as the jagged, snow-clad towers of the Torres del Paine rise in the background. The rugged Paine range was formed when plateaus of granite were thrust upward by tectonic collisions, then carved away by ancient retreating glaciers.
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Kayaking in Patagonia
Photograph by Marco Simoni/Getty Images
Kayakers negotiate a massive iceberg calved by the glacier that feeds Lago Grey in Chile's Torres del Paine National Park. This spectacularly picturesque park is a designated World Biosphere Reserve located in far southwestern Chile.
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Mountain Climber
Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie
A mountain climber ascends the playfully nicknamed Fickle Finger of Fate summit, a rime-covered, spire-shaped peak in Chilean Patagonia's Cordillera Sarmiento.
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Skier in Patagonia
Photograph by Gorgon Wiltsie
A skier glides past a fractured section of ice and snow in the Cordillera Sarmiento of Patagonia, Chile. This area is the highest point in the South American ice cap, a series of interconnected Andean glaciers that cover more than 5,000 square miles (13,000 square kilometers).
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Garibaldi Fjord and Glacier
Photograph by Richard Nowitz
Tourists board Zodiac boats to explore Chilean Tierra del Fuego's Garibaldi Fjord. The fjord was cut by the retreating Garibaldi Glacier, a towering wall of ice descending from the Darwin Range.
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Patagonia Cave
Photograph by Carsten Peters
A cautious caver descends a heavily eroded limestone wall on Madre de Dios Island in Chilean Patagonia. The island, located off the cold, wet coast of southern Chile, is made up of coral limestone laid down near the Equator some 300 million years ago and later thrust to the surface by tectonic forces.
