On the official maps of the Chilean IGM (Instituto Geográfico Militar), not a single feature of the Cordillera de Sarmiento has been given a name, in part due to the total lack of human presence in the area.

In recent geological times the ice was thousands of feet thicker, bulldozing the long north–south fjords, rounding out basins in the main massif, and shaving smooth the neighboring ranges.

From the nearby sub-Antarctic waters, the persistent west winds (the Furious Fifties) pick up moist, cold air and plaster the peaks with thick frost.

The rock, part of the rare Rocas Verdes formation, originated at the end of the Gondwana super-continent, when Patagonia started to break up and an oceanic basin was formed between the volcanic arc and the continent.

In the 1830s, however, as Robert Fitz Roy and his crew explored the southern end of South America in HMS Beagle, they discovered the fjord that gives access to the eastern flanks of Cordillera de Sarmiento.