Year in Patagonia

Spend 135 days immersed in one of the world’s most remote and beautiful places. You’ll learn a range of outdoor skills—from glacier mountaineering to sea kayaking to rock climbing to horsepacking—while building deep connections with Patagonian culture and landscape. If you’re looking for a once-in-a-lifetime experience that combines cultural immersion with outdoor adventure, this is the course for you.

Your year is split into two semesters with several sections. The order varies by course, and you’ll have a short holiday break between fall and spring to travel Chile, study Spanish, or return home. You’ll start with a 20 hour Wilderness First Aid certification, where you’ll learn to make critical medical and evacuation decisions in remote locations. From there, you’ll rotate through sections that may include mountaineering (31 days, 60-100 miles), sea kayaking (31 days, 150-200 nautical miles), rock climbing (23 days), horsepacking (15 days, 40-80 miles), and cultural immersion (8-10 days).

On the mountain travel section, you’ll progress from basic wilderness travel to glacier mountaineering—mastering rope handling, ice axe use, rope team movement, and crevasse rescue while navigating rarely-visited terrain. Sea kayaking explores Chile’s southern coast, where you’ll paddle and camp with the rhythm of the tides. You’ll learn to read weather and sea state, and make critical risk management decisions in an environment where conditions change rapidly. Rock climbing is base-camp style, meaning you set up camp just once and spend more time on technical work, climbing mainly volcanic tuff. You’ll begin with the basics of movement, knots, and belaying, then advance to protection placement and rappelling. Horsepacking takes you through the Patagonian steppe and deciduous forests, where you’ll learn to care for, saddle, and ride horses while traveling authentic gaucho trails and crossing rivers.

The cultural immersion section pairs you with five other students to live with a Patagonian host family on a remote campo (ranch). You’ll be fully immersed in Spanish language and rural life—working with livestock, chopping firewood, making cheese, working alongside people passionate about the Patagonian wilderness.

Given Patagonia’s location, weather shifts dramatically. You’ll navigate challenging conditions with the support of your instructors and the tight-knit community you’ll build with your fellow students. The course may culminate in an 8-9 day independent student expedition. You’ll set goals as a group, plan the route, arrange pickup and drop-off locations, prepare your equipment, organize your rations and fuel, and discuss emergency plans.

By the end of this year, you’ll have mastered outdoor living and leadership skills and developed a connection with a place and its community, carrying with you experiences and memories that you’ll use throughout your life.