VOL. XVIII · SPRING — AUTUMN 2026 SEASON
Eighteen years of carefully-built trips to places that don't appear in guidebooks — Patagonian high-route traverses, Greenlandic kayak crossings, Bhutanese pilgrim trails. Maximum group size: eight. Guides who know the route by the third call.
In eighteen years and three hundred forty-two expeditions, we've developed exactly three convictions about how this work ought to be done. We hold them tightly.
i.
No expedition ever exceeds eight clients, regardless of demand or commercial pressure. Eight is the largest group that can move quietly through fragile country, share a single cookfire, and have a real conversation at dinner. We turn down repeat bookings rather than break this rule.
ii.
Every expedition is led by a local certified guide who lives in or near the route year-round, supplemented by one of our long-tenured expedition leaders. The local guide is paid the larger share. No exceptions — including for routes where finding such a guide is genuinely difficult.
iii.
Day-by-day plans are guidelines, not contracts. We re-route, shelter, or shorten as conditions require — and we tell you so in writing before you book. Roughly one expedition in eight has its route materially altered after departure. That's the nature of the work.
A day-by-day account of our flagship expedition — the Cordillera Sur Traverse, run twice a year from October through April. Six representative days from a fourteen-day itinerary, with photographs from the Spring 2024 group.
— Estancia Las Tunas · 405m elevation
Transfer from El Calafate (3h45m by road), arrival at the estancia by mid-afternoon, light dinner, kit check. Group meets the local guide, Mauro Lévi-Tessier — a Patagonian guide of 31 years and the only person in the country with first ascents on three of the named peaks we'll see this week.
— Río Eléctrico drainage → Piedra del Fraile · 620m elevation
First serious day on foot. The trail follows the Río Eléctrico beneath the eastern face of Cerro Eléctrico for roughly fifteen kilometres, gaining six hundred and eighty metres unevenly. We make first camp at Piedra del Fraile — the last established refugio on the route. From tomorrow we sleep where the weather permits.
— Col Marconi · 1,840m crossing · west side of icefield
The technical heart of the route. A 1,240-metre ascent over five kilometres to the Marconi col, followed by a descent of nearly nine hundred metres in three. The col itself sits at 1,840m and gives the first proper view of the Hielo Continental Sur — the southern Patagonian icefield, the world's third-largest. Helmets, harnesses, crampons. Mauro decides the timing, weather-dependent.
— Paso Marconi camp · 1,460m · two-night stay
A built-in rest day at the midpoint. We re-supply from a cache placed by the mule team three weeks before departure, do laundry in the meltwater stream, and Mauro leads an optional short walk to a viewpoint over the icefield. If the weather is poor on day nine, we add a second rest day here rather than push tired bodies over the next col.
— Glaciar Upsala approach · Lago Argentino northern shore · 220m
A long descent off the icefield's eastern margin to the northern shore of Lago Argentino. Eighteen and a half kilometres losing nearly seventeen hundred metres of elevation — the hardest day on the knees in the entire route. Camp tonight is at the lake's edge. We swim if anyone has the appetite, and meet the boat that will carry us across to Estancia Cristina at first light.
— Estancia Cristina · 240m · end of expedition
Boat across the northern arm of Lago Argentino at first light, then a four-kilometre walk into Estancia Cristina — a working sheep station of 1914, now operating in part as a guest house. Hot showers, a long lunch on the terrace, and a final dinner with Mauro and his family, who join us from El Chaltén. Onwards departure by boat next morning, returning to El Calafate.
Our full 2026 catalogue, in alphabetical order by country. Each runs at most twice a year, max eight clients per departure, all departures certain-to-run when fully booked at six clients or more.
§ 04 — A LETTER FROM A CLIENT
"I have travelled with five outfits in my adult life. Tern & Compass is the only one that has ever refused my money on the grounds that I wasn't quite ready for the route — and then sent me, free of charge, a training itinerary, two telephone calls with Mauro, and a list of three easier expeditions to try first. I booked the Cordillera Sur the following year. I have not used another outfit since."
I started Tern & Compass in 2007 with a kayak, a satellite phone, and one client — a retired botanist named Ada Hesketh who wanted to walk the Faroese coast for her seventy-second birthday. Eighteen years later we have a staff of seven, a roster of fourteen local guides on three continents, and a guest house in Pemberton, British Columbia where we still host every pre-trip briefing in person.
We've turned down two acquisition offers in those years. One came from a publicly-traded adventure-travel conglomerate; the other from a private equity firm. Neither one was ever going to keep groups at eight clients, and neither would have kept paying our local guides the larger share. We are not for sale, will not be sold, and have no plans to grow.
If you write to us we will write back, usually within a working day, often within an hour. We have no chatbot. If you call between 8am and 6pm Pacific, you'll reach me, my wife, or our daughter — who happens to be our best-trained Patagonian guide.
Everything that ought to be transparent before you book a trip — group composition, what's covered, what isn't, how cancellations work, and what we owe you if the weather makes us re-route.
All in-country transfers, all meals from the first to the last day, all permits, all camping equipment, satellite communications, all guides & porters, drinking water, medical evacuation insurance.
Maximum 8 clients per expedition, always. Minimum 4 clients for a confirmed departure. Average group age: 51. Roughly 60% repeat clients across the catalogue. Solo travellers are very welcome.
Full refund up to 120 days before departure. 50% refund 60—120 days out. 25% refund 30—60 days. No refund inside 30 days, but full credit toward a future expedition within 24 months.
Every prospective client receives a free 45-minute phone consultation before being approved to book. Most expeditions require 4—6 months of preparatory training; we provide an individualised programme at no extra cost.
— THE 2026 CATALOGUE
The full 2026 catalogue is a 64-page printed book — itineraries, photographs, route maps, the names of the guides — that we post anywhere in the world at no charge. Most people read it once and then write to us about which expedition fits.