Boiling Lake Dominica Apr 7,09

Friday, April 10th, 2009

Went on a great hike up into the mountains of Dominica today.

WT, Nicola, Susie, Nicko and I took a bus up to the mountain town of Laudat where we paid our $5.00 US
site fee then started our hike by Pitou Gorge.

Our objective was the Boiling Lake and the Valley of Desolation high up in the Morne Trois Pitons
National park. The trail is very good and fairly easy to follow but it is essentially a 6 mile stairway! The
valleys are very steep and covered in lush rainforest. The first part of the trail we climbed relatively
slowly under scattered showers and then we came to the top of a ridge and started a 2 mile up and down
that was a real workout.

Eventually we came to the top of a high ridge and looked down into the valley of desolation with the
steam from the boiling lake rising from the forest on the mountainside beyond it.

After a very steep scramble down into the valley we passed hotsprings and boiling pools with steam rising
straight into the sky. Everywhere there was sulphur coated rocks and bubbling hissing sulphurous steam.
In places the ground was hot and you could here the steam hissing and roaring beneath your feet. Very
cool.

The valley of desolation is indeed desolate the result of a massive phreatic (steam) explosion in the 1880s
sometime. There was a smaller one in 1997 as well.

From there we followed the hot streams down the valley a bit and then climbed up to the edge of the
Boiling lake. This lake is the largest of it’s kind in the world and is a very impressive example of the power
of the tectonic and volcanic forces beneath our feet. The lake is in the bottom of a perfect cylindrical pipe
maybe 300′ across. The center of the lake is in a constant state of roiling boil. It makes a steady rumble a
it does so.

Very impressive.

On our way back through the valley of desolation we stopped to look into many of the boiling pools and
steam vents and followed some of the sulphur mud flows. The guide of another party gave us a hard time
for “analysing” things without a permit?!? Apparently looking too closely at things is considered
“research” and needs a permit of some kind. Go figure.

Susie figures I must have looked like a geologist or somebody scientific. Who knew :-)

Of course every downhill we had done meant a subsequent uphill and vice verse. My knee which
occasionally gives me trouble when hiking was really sore by the time we got back to the Pitou Gorge.
Susie took off ahead on the way back and was down almost a half an hour before Nicko and I stumbled
out the forest. WT and Nickola followed us out maybe 15 minutes later. All safe and sound.

Tonight the Ruin Rock is putting on a BBQ for us so that’s where I will be heading once I get cleaned up.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Here are the pictures from our expedition.

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