Waking up to extraordinary mountain ranges draped in ice, penguins and whales, icebergs and glaciers is like waking to a dream.

"I thought that they were going to knock me out in the first inning," said Perez, his right shoulder and right leg draped in ice and his entire ego bruised.

Mr. Rowell's photograph of the Fitz Roy range - sheer granite towers draped in ice reaching up into an indigo sky brushed in a light that looks like molten gold - is one of the more spectacular in the book.