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“Is that brown or is that green?” inquired a voice a few rows back as our flight came in to land at El Calafate. Like most things Patagonian, even the color of the mud-olive steppe was elusive.

Loosely defined as the vast windswept wilderness straddling Chile and Argentina south of the Rio Colorado, Patagonia is neither a country nor a province. The origins of its name, thanks to Bruce Chatwin’s legendary ramblings, are still not entirely certain. Its climate is infuriatingly capricious, its topography all over the place - from semi-desert plains to towers of ice on the earth’s most southern land mass (except for Antarctica). Strewn with the fossilized relics of the largest known dinosaurs, Patagonia is perhaps Latin America’s most deeply mythologized land. What’s clear, though, is that, despite the current tourism boom that has reinvented Argentina, the very name Patagonia remains international shorthand for remoteness: the quintessential wild frontier, ripe with that same promise of isolation that lured Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they were on the run 100 years ago.

Nowadays, Argentine Patagonia has re-emerged as the definitive planet’s edge destination. Neighboring Chile - which throughout the ‘90s enjoyed its status as the Southern Cone’s inexpensive and more visited side - has switched roles with its rival following Argentina’s economic meltdown four years ago. Patagonia’s largest province, Santa Cruz, has finally opened itself up to easier air and road access. And with the 2003 election of its governor Nestor Kirchner as Argentina’s president, even the toffee-nosed Porteños of Buenos Aires have at last started to explore the Long Forsaken South.

For most of the past century, sheep farming was Patagonia’s singular calling - even now sheep outnumber humans by ten-to-one. Today, however, with the industry in decline, there are hundreds of abandoned estancias (sheep ranches) scattered across the region, which is the size of Texas and Ohio combined. Yet an increasing number of structures have been transformed into hosterias, as any small hotel in Argentina is called. I recently visited three such retreats, all in the Glaciares National Park area and all rooted in one way or another in the estancia tradition.

My first stop was Alta Vista, an English country house at the end of the world. Or so it seems. What is now a seven-room hosteria was in fact built in 1920 by Yugoslav pioneers as part of Estancia Anita, the area’s largest working sheep farm. And its secluded setting in the Patagonian steppe is only 22 miles from El Calafate, which over the last decade has mushroomed from a blink-and-you-miss-it hamlet to a boomtown of 15,000 people - most of whom owe their livelihoods to a block of ice five times the size of Manhattan.

Since the opening of El Calafate airport in 2000, said ice block, Glaciar Perito Moreno, has become Patagonia’s biggest star. Soon after alighting from our three-hour flight from Buenos Aires, my Argentine wife, Silvana, and I discovered why. But first we made our reconnoiter of Alta Vista, checking out monogrammed “AV” headboards (nice touch), obligatory gaucho-chic cowhide rugs, fresh-cut flowers from the handsomely groomed garden, and pitiful bedroom soundproofing (easy, tiger). Then Alta Vista’s handy-man, Abel, slung a couple of mountain bikes on the back of his pick up and invited us to go gawk at one of the earth’s great natural wonders.

Within an hour, the distant sludge of scrappily combed ice-cream came into view. As we drew closer, the glacier seemed to form a monster citadel of ghostly wafered spires crumpling in on themselves. But it was from the boardwalks just across from Moreno where the real drama kicked in: hearing the beast - so violent, so fragile - shed itself into pieces. By turns, the ice creaked and groaned, rippled like dashed pebbles, snapped and roared like the blaze of dry firewood.

As the late-afternoon sun sunk into the white-sheathed landscape we chugged back to the hosteria. Along a desolate dirt track, eight miles shy of the lodge, Abel let us out with the bikes. To the west, we were bound by the foothills of the Andes. But we peddled south, chasing the long, flat, pink horizon toward the emergent mustard cubes of Alta Vista.

The next morning, hungry for high adventure, Silvana and I met with the manager, Grace, to explore our outdoor options. In one of those fractured Spanglish conversations, she mentioned that “bed wetting” was particularly popular, especially among the more senior guests. After some genuine struggling, I realize she meant “bird watching” - which sounded even less alluring. So instead, we saddled up with Don Reyes, the hosteria’s resident gaucho, who spoke not one word of English and whose sole tooth was the same beguiling color of the sun-scorched steppe.

Alta Vista’s trump card - more than its food (inconsistent), and more than its tour of Estancia Anita (where in December you can see some of the 22,000 ewes being sheared and for the other 11 months of the year you can see the shed where it all happens) - is horseback riding. With precious little in the way of safety prep (no riding hat, no stirrup check, no riding instruction save the suggestion to relax), Reyes led us through parched open plains and gently sloping valleys until we found a lonely spot of shade with unbroken views of Moreno on the horizon.

Over milanesa (breaded steak) sandwiches, he recounted his life story (ran away from Chile at 15, never returned), while our horses roamed untethered. We continued on to the hills of Chorillo Malo, but the destination in itself carried no meaning; it was the magnificent middle-of-nowhere stuff and the impossibly big skies that whispered the magic of the place.

We left El Calafate wondering what the pioneer life must have held for the turn-of-the-century settlers who abandoned the comforts of the north for this vacant land. A six-hour bus ride to El Chalten, on the northern periphery of the park, stripped back some clues. “Born” in 1985 to contest Chile’s claim to the area, this Andean outpost resembles, for half the year, a ragged movie set of prefab chalets and A-frame shacks, with around 100 inhabitants. But in mid-March, as summer bled into autumn, there was a hum and buzz in the damp air. Dominating the hillside vista, the town’s first five-star resort was nearing completion, while the gravel road from El Calafate was scheduled to be fully paved, cutting the journey to under two hours.

But the floodgates of mass tourism were yet to be breached. Our 10-room hosteria, El Pilar, at the confluence of two rivers 11 miles from town, was built nine years ago in the original estancia style (read: corrugated iron roof) yet was already exuding a marvelous lived-in warmth. Its front door opens directly into a dining-room-reception-lounge space, at the center of which is an elevated fireplace. The hallways are lined with antique cast-iron chimeneas and the generously sized rooms all face Mount Fitz Roy - the most challenging peak of the Andean cordillera. Not that it really mattered: most days, even amid clear blue skies, the summit is cloaked in mist - hence the name Chalten (“smoking mountain”) given by the Tehuelche, who presumed it was a volcano.

Our first afternoon, which brought a soft, persistent drizzle, was spent tracing the life of early settler Andreas Madsen, a Danish sailor who was commissioned to help map the Argentina-Chile border and wound up staying, smitten by what he called “a space without limits, lands without owner.” (These days one-sixth of Patagonia belongs to foreigners, most notably Luciano Benetton, who is now among the largest landholders in Argentina.)

We crossed a river by primitive cable car and hiked a path to the foot of a postcard-perfect knoll to find the tiny, decaying cottage Madsen built for himself. There we were greeted by Alejandro Luis, who is restoring the place as a museum, and whose infectious passion for Patagonia’s history is paired with his talent for baking what is the best lemon pie I have ever tasted. Luis is the kind of host who makes you want to hole up all week, pouring over old photos in front of the fire. But Fitz Roy called - and in spectacular fashion. Our hike started with gentle bullets of sleet, then hail, as we ascended a 14-mile circuit from El Pilar. But by lunchtime the summit started to dance in and out of the clouds.

At Laguna de los Tres we stopped to crane our necks toward the mighty canvas of granite spikes - those same spikes that were appropriated by Patagonia Inc. as its logo - bathed in brilliant sunshine. Below, the vista to our left was dominated by Glaciar Rio Blanco, and to our right, by the lagoon itself, its sapphirine milkiness playing tricks with my idea of what is possible in the hue of blue. Silvana whipped out the mate, Argentina’s traditional herbal tea drink sipped from a small pot through a metal pipe (which, if you didn’t know any better, resembles some sort of archaic apparatus for crack cocaine), and we kicked back in stupefied realization: so this is why El Chalten is called Argentina’s hiking mecca.

While El Pilar and Alta Vista both command impressively remote locations, Patagonia’s ultimate temple of isolation is found at the end of a dirt road at the foot of a gently arcing bluff inside Los Glaciares National Park, 111 miles from El Calafate, the nearest town. Hugging the southern shore of Lake Viedma, with the Fitz Roy massif forming a northern backdrop, Helsingfors enjoys the sort of majestic views that make it seem like you have just entered your own private wilderness, totally fractured from every constituent of civilization.

Strange then, that Alfred Ramstrom, who built the original estancia in 1918, named it after his home city, Helsinki. Following the Anglocentric elegance of Alta Vista and the mountain-cabin vibe of El Pilar, Helsingfors feels like a stylish Scandinavian hideout with just the right mix of Old World and New - dark wood beams set against white stone exteriors; patio pathways laid from aged sequoia logs; cozy oversize sofas, state-of-the-art Scottish showers, and exceptional cooking.

Reconstructed in 1946, Helsingfors was completely refurbished last year, and, try as I might, I was unable to find fault with the eight-room lodge. Except perhaps the wind, which turned out to be the great big adventure in itself. Our first warning came from the “sheltering” pines around the lake: their entire lakeside flanks had had their branches shorn clean. Meantime, any hope of venturing out on Helsingfors’ inflatable launch to view the sculpted ice caves of Glaciar Viedma was dashed by the lakes’ ominous swell. Instead, our activities director, Diego, suggested another glacier visit, on terra firma - which involved ascending a precipitous bluff by horseback.

Silvana, one of those uber-equestrian showoffs who used to ride bareback in Buenos Aires, took to the course effortlessly. I squarely requested a horse who was tranquilito. But oh, how the strategy backfired: I was given Panza (Fatty), who plodded and swayed along the ridge with such lassitude that I truly feared for him (well, me) being swept off the mountainside altogether. The ferocity of the gusts - reported the next day to be over 90 miles per hour - were such that I was sprayed in the naked sunlight by what I first confused as rain, but then realized was simply another horse, 200 feet upwind, relieving himself.

When we finally reached the brilliant turquoise jaws of Laguna Azul, I was able to recollect myself and bathe in the glacial beauty of the valley. The knowledge that much of the surrounding land remains totally virgin (some of the peaks are yet to be scaled), made the moment sweeter still. I turned to Diego and asked him if, like the Eskimos’ legendary vocabulary for snow, Patagonians had fashioned an extended lexicon for their fabled squalls. “We have many names for it,” smiled Diego, “but you cannot print them in your magazine.”

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