Four years ago, we started expeditions to the Mitre Peninsula. We call it Expedition because it is understood that they are made to a distant point and collectively, with a sporting and exploration purpose. The distant and collective implies an important logistic. We always tell the experience, and not the previous or backstage. However, it is fundamental that this planning and logistics be efficient for the success of an expedition.

In the particular case of MITRE, we had to take into account the economic factor. For the expedition to be affordable, the planning has to be cost controlled. And affordable does not mean cheap. No expedition can be.

So that you can understand, the MITRE Peninsula is a remote place, difficult to access as you go along, with many rivers to ford. On the other hand it is a natural reserve, but without any infrastructure, park rangers or rescue plan. This is also what makes this place attractive for professional mountain or wilderness guides: because not everything is under control.

Our most adventurous destination is Bahía Aguirre. More like Puerto Español. We make two groups. One walks from Moat and arrives at Aguirre walking, rests, gets on the sailboat and returns to Ushuaia. While this same sailboat leaves other hikers coming from Ushuaia to do the hike in the opposite direction

Bahía Aguirre is a 6 day hike from Moat where Complementary Route J ends. Moat is a 3 hour hike from Ushuaia on the coast of the Beagle Channel. Our normal stages are 7 to 9 hours. To reach our destination we have to make several river fords, 2 of them can be really complicated if there are floods. One year our guides almost got carried away by the Bompland River and we almost couldn’t cross again. If you don’t like getting wet, don’t go to Mitre. Then they go back by sailboat, and it is another story, another adventure that we will tell another day. Anyway, we cannot carry food for so many days for an average of 9 people per expedition without logistical support. Here we do not work with mules or Sherpas. The terrain is tremendously humid, very irregular, and one has to be attentive at all times to where one is stepping. Stealing Messner’s phrase; it is horizontal mountaineering. There are no trails, we follow animal tracks if there are any and, each year, the passes have been improved… the first group is to be applauded. Some of the passes were worthy of Rambo.

That’s how we started.

For our first expedition, we had to supply 4 key points. We made a previous supply by sailboat in 2 strategic places. Miki’s sailboat left Ushuaia one day in November and we had to count 4 days to do everything. Two days there, two days back.

We made this trip by sailboat with a hardy captain who allowed us to disembark in Sloggett Bay (meaning All Together in Yugoslavian) with a contingent of friends, two huge buckets, some shovels and two backpacks full of provisions. We walked along the beach and made two giant pits about 10 meters from a lagoon. That was a monstrous mistake from which we learned; after so many efforts to bury so much food and drink, we found out a month later that our tachos ended up floating in the Lopez river, and were rescued by a hiker and a gaucho who at least could take advantage of the coolness of a beer…We lost everything. Very bad for us. Here the rivers are unpredictable. They overflow. The flow takes everything. And if it’s not the river directly, it’s the groundwater that lifts up the tachos (on another occasion we buried a tacho in a peat bog. It had no river next to it, but the peat itself is a water reservoir! One day our tacho appeared showing its little head as a submarine with two twigs on top in the middle of the peat bog) Back to the tachos that were carried away by the river: this meant that we had to send two porters with us on the expedition to advance supplies. They were very poorly loaded, and far from having what we had in the tubs, in a very irregular terrain and difficult for the ankles and knees. It never leaves us alone. Then with the sailboat, we went down to Bahía Aguirre. Our current destination. We brought down the boxes of provisions without any problems and they waited for us until January. Now we don’t leave anything in the refuge. Most people respect the effects of others, especially hikers, but you can’t afford to be overconfident because you make a mistake and don’t eat a whole group for days. We now have our food in some hampers and buckets, far from the post where we stayed and so covered that not even the foxes can reach them.

After this first expedition with sailboat and porters and us loaded, we decided to hire Luis, the only permanent inhabitant of the Peninsula. A hardy gaucho in whom we trusted to leave our supplies. He lives on a ranch two days from Prefectura Moat. Before to arrange work with him we had to send messages that he saw only in Prefectura, now, Luis has Starlink… Things change. For this job he carries with his mount a porter horse. In total he could carry up to 80kg. We always send less. He has a potato sack bag, which he made himself, and another one made with ropes to the size of the tubs that we carry. There is a hatch on each side of the horse. He has to be well balanced to avoid accidents. I repeat that the coast of MITRE is not easy at all. He takes them to Sloggett Bay where we meet after 3 days of trekking, the food of the first days is divided among all, obviously the guides carry much more. And there in Sloggett Bay, begins an odyssey to reorganize the food and cross what one group needs and leave what the other uses. During the first two years crossing this river was a headache: we were always at the mercy of its flow and the height of the water. If it was too high, we had to walk two kilometers upstream and find a place to ford, which was not always guaranteed, although once we crossed it running at the mouth of the river, but it was exceptional! The following year, our little boat was gone. The oars were hanging in the only tin house on the beach. There were some gold prospectors who had our boat. Broken. Go figure out what happened. We needed to improve our hiding places, to get away from the water that lifts everything even where you think it never reaches. Over the years we improved a lot of the anchorages and portages. In Sloggett Bay, Seba flew an incredible plane, all fabric like the ones in Alaska. He landed on only 60 meters of beach. He ran to a spot and buried our boat, 50 kg of provisions divided into two garbage cans. One for each expedition. In only 2 hours of operation, unbelievable!!!

After all this, we did a human portage and went back to our roots by hiring Luis to carry things on horseback, making sure that each anchorage has more than enough extra supplies for future expeditions. In the most unusual places we have pots, grills, even emergency clothing and food to always go lighter. When we arrive at a campsite our pleasure is…to go and look for our hut. And find it exactly where it was. Without being kicked by a bull or lifted by a river.

That will lead to another story…what the heck do you eat on an expedition! See you next time!