Forget Montana. Forget Martha’s Vineyard. These days, Patagonia–a pristine wilderness half the size of Alaska with just 1.5 million inhabitants–is fast becoming the world’s most alluring destination for the rich and famous. Once the exclusive domain of Mapuche Indians and sheep farmers, Patagonia now caters to an international elite drawn by its magnificent scenery, unparalleled remoteness and activities ranging from kayaking to climbing to skiing. Bill Clinton spent the final weekend of his seven-day tour through South America relaxing and discussing global warming with Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem in San Carlos de Bariloche, a Patagonian ski town at the foot of the Andes. And a growing list of moguls and media stars are snapping up estancias, or ranches, throughout the region. Sylvester Stallone has just paid $8 million for a 35,000-acre spread, and Ted Turner and Jane Fonda own an $8 million, 11,000-acre ranch nearby. Douglas Tompkins, who sold the Esprit clothing company for millions in 1990, has all but abandoned the modem world for Patagonia. He and his wife live year-round on a solar-powered farm–with no telephone–in the Chilean wilderness.

Nonmillionaires are beginning to discover Patagonia as well. The trip from the States is long and expensive–$4,000 for airfare and one week’s car and lodging. Few locals speak English, and overland distances are enormous. But the pleasures are abundant. They’re riding the vintage steam locomotive celebrated by Paul Theroux in “The Old Patagonian Express,” summer-skiing in the Andes or hiking across vast sheets of crevassed ice in Argentina’s Glacier National Park. “It’s a mystical, almost imaginary place, like Timbuktu,” Chouinard, a climber who first visited Patagonia in 1968, has said. “It conjures up Cape Horn, wild weather and gauchos.”

It also conjures up outlaws. In 1901 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the notorious Wild West bank and train robbers, fled the United States and settled on a sheep farm outside the town of Esquel, in the Argentine province of Chubut. After World War II, Patagonia played host to a different kind of fugitive. Argentine dictator Juan Peron and his wife, Evita, welcomed hundreds of escaped Nazis to Argentina, reportedly in return for multimillion-dollar bribes. Many found a sanctuary in Bariloche, a German-founded town whose citizens openly flew the Nazi flag during the war. The most notorious resident was mass murderer Erich Priebke, who celebrated Hitler’s birthday every April with a circle of other Nazis in a Bariloche hotel until he was discovered and extradited to Italy to stand trial in 1995.

The new wave of foreigners in Patagonia carries a bit more cachet. Some have been lured by Argentina’s friendly investment climate–and fertile land that sells for half the price of equivalent U.S. property. They’ve been revitalizing the wheat, cattle and wool industries that made Argentina one of the world’s wealthiest nations before World War II. Italy’s Benetton family, owners of the clothing empire, raise 400,000 sheep on six estancias covering a swath of Patagonia larger than Delaware. Their total investment in Argentine land: $82 million. George Soros, the philanthropist-financier, recently bought more than 1 million acres in Patagonia, a purchase that made him the biggest landowner in Argentina. Local reaction to the foreign influx has been mixed. The Argentine government appears to welcome the new investment, although some congressmen from Patagonia have complained about encroachments on Argentine sovereignty. In Chile, Tompkins’s plan to turn 800,000 acres into a nature reserve known as Parque Pumalin provoked bitter opposition from right-wing Chilean senators, some of whom have ties to big timber companies. The senators accused Tompkins of trying to cut Chile in half and establish a pro-abortion republic with himself as president. Last July, after a years-long battle, Tompkins finally won approval for his park from the Chilean government. He has already set up visitors’ centers, campgrounds and 60 kilometers of hiking trails. Which means that growing numbers of gringos will soon be trekking south–just about as far south as you can get–to Patagonia.