The Carretera Austral runs out here, and it does not so much end as dissolve into lake, ice and forest. Villa O'Higgins is a village of a few hundred people at the southern tip of the road, on the shore of an arm of Lago O'Higgins, in a landscape of glaciers, fjords and beech forest that is among the wildest in South America. The road itself, Ruta 7, was a pet project of the military government, pushed through the Patagonian wilderness from Puerto Montt over many years, and reached this final village only in 1999. Before that, the settlers who came to this valley in the 1960s had to bring everything by boat or on foot.
The country is huge and wet. Mountains rise straight out of the water, hung with glaciers and waterfalls, and the Southern Patagonian Ice Field lies just beyond, feeding great tongues of ice into the lake. The O'Higgins glacier, one of the largest outlets of the ice field, calves into the water with a low boom. The forests are lenga and coihue and ñire, mossy and twisted by wind, and in autumn the leaves turn red and gold. The weather is a force of its own: rain can last for days, then clear, and the wind can blow hard enough to flatten a tent.
The final stretch from Cochrane, about two hundred kilometres, is gravel and some of the best in Chile for a rider with a bit of experience, though it is slow. The road follows the Baker river, crosses wide gravel flats and climbs over headlands above the lake, with big views at every bend. A ferry crossing interrupts the road at Puerto Yungay, a short and free hop across a fjord, and the road beyond follows the lake shore to the village. Traffic is almost non-existent, so any breakdown means a long wait.
Plan every litre. Fuel is available in Cochrane, and in Villa O'Higgins itself, but supplies can be thin and a bad run of weather can interrupt deliveries, so fill the tank at every chance, and carry spare fuel. There are a few small shops and guesthouses in the village, and the food is simple, with lamb, potatoes, bread and strong tea. At the pier, a boat crosses the lake to a trail that leads over the border to El Chaltén in Argentina, a classic route for hikers and cyclists. Go between November and March, when the days are long and the road is open.