Why this ride
A mountain loop with linked bends, elevation change and broad landscape variety. It links naturally to Tierra del Fuego National Park.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ushuaia Lago Fagnano and Lapataia
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 175 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 08
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Editorial context
Coordinates are curated start-via-end route seeds. They are not a surveyed centreline or navigation geometry. Run road snapping, topology checks, access checks and a live-status review before publication.
Access context
Do not auto-publish. Snap to a routable road network, verify current closures, legal motorcycle access, surface, permits, border controls and local safety information.
Seasonal context
Nov-Mar
Scenic road chapters
Garibaldi Pass Tierra del Fuego
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 51 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Rider note
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 51 km
- Pass
- Garibaldi Pass Tierra del Fuego
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Ushuaia
Ushuaia calls itself the end of the world, and with a straight face: it is the southernmost city of any size on the planet, tucked between the Beagle Channel and a wall of jagged Andean peaks at the bottom of Tierra del Fuego. About fifty-eight thousand people live here, in a town that climbs the hillside in colourful tin-roofed houses, and the harbour is full of expedition ships bound for Antarctica. The ride you came for runs out of town to the east and west, and both directions are short, because the road simply stops.
Read the complete Ushuaia write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ushuaia sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Lago Fagnano.
2. Lago Fagnano
Lago Fagnano is the great lake of Tierra del Fuego, about a hundred kilometres long and shared between Argentina and Chile, and it lies in a deep valley that splits the island from east to west, between the Fuegian Andes and the lower hills to the north. It was named for Giuseppe Fagnano, an Italian priest who worked as a missionary in the region in the nineteenth century, though the Selk'nam people who lived here before had their own name for it. The water is cold, dark and often whipped to white by the wind, and its shores are covered with thick forest of southern beech.
Read the complete Lago Fagnano write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lago Fagnano comes up 46 km in. Next is Lapataia.
3. Lapataia
Lapataia is where the road ends, and that is the whole point. Ruta 3, which begins in Buenos Aires, runs for more than three thousand kilometres to this quiet bay in Tierra del Fuego National Park, and a wooden sign by the water records the distance and invites you to have your photograph taken. The bay lies on the Beagle Channel, in a landscape of forest, peat bogs and snow-covered mountains, with the water dark and still and the opposite shore, belonging to Chile, only a short distance away.
Read the complete Lapataia write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
At least 119 km in you reach Lapataia. Next is Ushuaia.
4. Ushuaia
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ushuaia write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ushuaia, late in the day.