Lago del Desierto is 36 kilometres north of El Chaltén along a gravel road that ends at a national park entrance and a short boat crossing. The name translates as Lake of the Desert, which is accurate to the landscape: this is raw southern Patagonia, no infrastructure beyond a basic park facility, water the colour of glacial melt, and the forest that lines the western shore rising steeply toward peaks that are visible in clear weather and invisible in cloud. It is the end of Argentina, geographically and temperamentally. The border with Chile is a short walk from the northern end of the lake.

Why This Lake Specifically

Lago del Desierto is less visited than Laguna de los Tres (the Fitz Roy viewpoint) because the approach is longer and requires a boat crossing rather than a trail. The couple who wants to elope at the end of Argentina, in a place where they are genuinely unlikely to encounter other people during the ceremony, finds in Lago del Desierto a setting that is as remote as it sounds. The ceremony sites I use are on the eastern shore, accessible from the parking area by a thirty-minute walk through lenga forest. The lake surface, when the wind drops, reflects the mountains to the west with clarity enough to make the reflection look like the primary image and the mountains themselves like the copy. I have photographed here in all weather conditions and the photographs that come from overcast days with the forest muted and the lake silver are as good as anything from the clear mountain days with the peaks sharp against blue sky.