OUTSIDE MAGAZINE

In 2005, as the AGT was first being charted, Outside Magazine's Elizabeth Hightower came to report on the trail: 

"Patagonia's wild peaks and blue glaciers have long been the ultimate last frontier. Now an American gone gaucho is carving out an incredible new trekking kingdom in Chile's vast, unspoiled Aysén region, and the South American dreamscape just got a whole lot bigger."

RED BULL: PROJECT ACHERON

"Following a long, sleepless van ride, the athlete team was saddled with full backpacks and hustled onto a 21-foot fiberglass fishing boat. Through the cold darkness, the bow sliced the sheet-glass waters of Lago Bertrand. Above the lake rose snow-covered peaks and glaciers illuminated by a waxing moon and more stars than most city dwellers can claim to have ever seen Just before dawn, the boat landed on a rocky beach."

PATAGONIA RISING

PAEx's Jonathan Leidich served as Field Producer for this award-winning documentary on the campaign to halt the damming of Patagonia's pristine rivers. 

"Deep in the heart of Patagonia flows the world's purest river: the Baker. Fed by vast glacial systems, this free-flowing watershed drives biodiversity in temperate rainforests and marine ecosystems. It is also the life source for Patagonia's most tenacious residents: Gauchos, the iconic South American cowboys."

NRDC: ON EARTH BLOG

"We’re tagging along with an expedition of glaciologists on a research trip to the source of these recent Glacial Lake Outburst Floods. The guides, from Patagonia Adventure Expeditions, carry brutally heavy packs filled beyond capacity with food, gear, and research equipment. They show no sign of fatigue."

APOCALYPTIC PLANET

"We moved through the half-lights and shades, following a local guide, Jonathan Leidich, a brawny Colorado expat who had come late to our crew. Without him, we'd still be slogging in marshes and braided riverbed twenty miles back. He knew the way, a footpath through passes and valleys, an old stock route about as wide as a goat trail. He'd been out here clearing it himself with machetes, chainsaws, and shovels, carving a path into the wilderness." 

GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE

"After a few hours, we leave the river and climb a series of rocky pathways, occasionally crossing streams, where tiny frogs scatter at our approach. Walking along the river valley, the vegetation we pass is lush and green, the path often cutting through shaded forest. As evening approaches, we reach the top of a ridge and the view opens out. A winding river cuts through the valley, framed on either side by giant granite walls and peaks. Between them is a mountaintop covered in ice: the entrance to the Patagonian Ice Fields."  

REVISTA OXIGENO (in Spanish)

"Llegamos a una preciosa y camuflada terraza natural, con vistas hacia otro de los frentes del glaciar Colonia, a los contrafuertes del campo de hielo y al alargado y encajonado lago Colonia, una localización sencillamente de ensueño."

LE SENTIER DES GLACIERS (in French)

"Le Sentier Des Glaciers D'Aysén est un Nouvel Itinéraire qui permet d'approcher le flanc est du campo hielo norte, la calotte due glace nord de Patagonie. De forêts primitives en vallées quasi inexplorées, la traversée de puerto Bertrand jusqu'a la confluence des RIo Baker et Colonia permet de s'immiscer au coeur d'une nature sauvage et intacte, jusque sur les glaciers démesurés du campo hielo. Une trace éphémere pour un réve bien réel. Chili le sentier."

LAREDOS MAGAZINE

"As I sat pondering the spiritual nature of this journey and the other-worldliness of the experience I looked up to find a huemul deer - an endangered species in the area - standing beside me. The strange creature by the stream was an exclamation point to the day that began by a nervous campfire and ended in the feeling of having truly been touched by the magical."