Senda de la Baliza and the End of the Road
The last trail of the day begins just past the Ruta 3 terminus sign, bearing right from the main boardwalk and crossing a short wooden footbridge over Paso Arias. The Senda de la Baliza runs about 1.5 kilometres one way through coastal forest and peat bog to a small headland where a maritime beacon — a baliza — marks the eastern edge of the bay. The views from the point take in the full width of Bahía Lapataia and the Chilean coast receding into distance.
This headland, at roughly 54.86° south, is the southernmost point of the trip. The number is worth sitting with for a moment. In the Northern Hemisphere, the same latitude runs through Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and Edmonton — cities with airports, rush hours, and coffee shops. Here, it passes through almost nothing — ocean, wind, and a handful of remote outposts. The southern edges of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand all sit well to the north of this point. At this latitude in the Southern Hemisphere, the only comparable places are Isla Navarino directly across the water — home to Puerto Williams, a Chilean naval base and the southernmost town on Earth — and beyond it the uninhabited or barely inhabited subantarctic islands: South Georgia, the Kerguelen Islands, the Crozet Islands. The feeling of standing at the edge of the accessible world is not metaphorical — it is a matter of geography. Bahía Lapataia is the southern terminus of the Pan-American Highway, the farthest south you can drive in the Western Hemisphere, and the end of the southernmost paved public road on Earth.
The drive back to Ushuaia retraces Ruta 3 eastward, returning through the same lenga beech forest and arriving in the city in the early evening.