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The PARQUE NACIONAL TIERRA DEL FUEGO is the easiest to access of southern Argentina's national parks, situated a mere 12km west of Ushuaia. It protects 630 square kilometres of jagged mountains, intricate lakes, southern beech forest, swampy peat bog, subantarctic tundra, and verdant coastline. The park stretches along the frontier with Chile, from the Beagle Channel to the Sierra de Injugoyen (also called the Sierra de Beauvoir) north of Lago Fagnano, but only the southernmost quarter of this is open to the public, accessed by the RN3 from Ushuaia. Fortunately, this area contains much of the park's most beautiful scenery, if also some of the wettest, so bring your rain gear. It is broken down here into three main sectors: Bahia Ensenada and Rio Pipo in the east, close to the station for the Tren del Fin del Mundo; Lago Roca further to the west; and the Lapataia area to the south of Lago Roca, which includes Lago Verde and, at the end of RN3, Bahia Lapataia on the Beagle Channel. You can get a good overview of the park in a day if you have your own transport or take a standard tour. Nevertheless, walkers will want to stay two to three days to appreciate the scenery and the wildlife , which includes birds such as Magellanic woodpeckers, condors, torrent ducks ( pato de los torrentes ), steamer ducks, upland geese, and buff-necked ibises; and mammals such as guanacos, the rare sea-otter or nutria marina , Patagonian grey foxes, and their larger, endangered cousin, the native Fuegian fox, once heavily hunted for its pelt. The park is also one of southern Argentina's easiest to walk around, and offers several relatively unchallenging though beautiful trails , many of which are completed in minutes rather than hours or days. Recommended are the Senda Costera (Coastal Path) connecting Bahia Ensenada with Lago Roca or Bahia Lapataia; and the comparatively tough Cerro Guanaco climb from Lago Roca. Hardened trekkers looking for a stern physical challenge should lower their aspirations, as only a couple of trails are demanding in this sense (for this, you'd do better looking to the Sierra Valdivieso and the Sierra Alvear; or Isla Navarino). Access is not authorized along the Sendero Lago Fagnano (marked on certain maps heading north from the Rio Pipo waterfall), and you will be fined if caught here. Obey the signs warning you to refrain from collecting shellfish due to the possibility of red tide, and light fires only in permitted campsites, extinguishing them with water, not earth.
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