So today I went with the Wellness Club on the 7 Waterfalls Hike. This is a hike I've been wanting to do for a while, but they haven't had it the past couple of semesters. Luckily for me, I got it in before I leave! So, first, I want you share with you what the Dominica guide books says about this hike...by the way, it's not actually listed in there as a legitimate hike... "Much of Dominica is unexplored and there are places on the island on which people have still not yet set foot (this is a total "duh" statement if you have ever been on the island)...In the area of Soltoun mid-way between the Layou River and Pont Casse there are a number of hidden and quite spectacular waterfalls. At the time of writing some of these remain inaccessible, though they can be viewed from a distance. Others may be reached via a long and difficult trail...From beginning to end this hike is extremely difficult. It is steep, narrow, slippery and long, involving a number of river crossings and plenty of tough ascents and descents. The...hike which takes in around seven waterfalls can take anywhere between 6-8 hours to complete..." Yeah, I agree. And I'm one of those people that like to know what they're getting into, and I should have read that before going on the hike (though I most likely wouldn't have known where in the guidebook to look since it's not labelled...it's on pg 204 by the way).
Now the hike was communicated to us that it'd take between 1.5-3 hrs and we'd definitely be back by 1pm at the latest (we left at 8am from campus). Yeah, we didn't get home until 4pm. :) The description is pretty darn accurate. The first 1.5-2 hrs was spent hiking on a trail that was barely there. Normally the trail (I'd call it more of a path really) was only about 6 inches wide on the side of a "cliff." So as you're hiking along, you're leaning onto whatever you can grab onto (roots, branches, vines, rocks, ground, etc) on one side because there's a steep LONG slope (50-several hundred ft) on the other side of you. Plus the ground is all muddy on your "trail" so that doesn't help with traction one bit! About 1.5 hrs after you've been on the side of the mountain, then you finally hit the river crossings. These I like because it's a lot of rock scrambling and though I'm short, my flexibility and rock climbing experience comes in handy here. (It reminded me a lot of the Victoria Falls hike at this point.) After 20-30min walking through water and scrambling over rocks, you come to the first falls (nice, but we swam at a pool a bit higher up). Definitely glad it showed up at this time because I was getting hungry and I had had to pee since the beginning of the hike! Hehe. Yeah for some swim time in the pool at the base, but that water was FREEZING (think Emerald Pool cold). 10 min. up the river, then we were at waterfall #2 (pictuted with me in in). Bigger than the first, the crazy boys were climbing up it and we were all convinced it was going to end badly (slipping and falling and hitting all the rocks on the way down). Luckily for us, they were more coordinated than they appeared, so nothing bad happened. Hike up another 20-30 min. then we hit #3, much bigger, better pool, so on and so forth. (You get to the point where if you've seen one waterfall you've seen them all...though I do love them all, so it's fine with me to keep seeing them.)
After #3, we had a "stair" climb to #4. Now I detest stairs. Take the Boiling Lake hike (1000s of stairs) for example, I can slip, slide, climb over rocks and tree roots as ladders all day long and not be out of breath, but give me those darn stairs and I go a huffing and a puffing. Luckily there were only around 50-100 stairs on this whole hike so it wasn't bad for the most part. #5 was a short 5 min. hike through a very muddy area to a super tall waterfall, which is a bit more famous because I know I've seen it on some Dominica advertisements (it's also in the guidebook at the beginning set of colored pictures, on "2" the one at the bottom). After #5 (you don't actually get to see #6 and #7 so the "7 Waterfalls hike" is a bit of a misnomer), there is a pretty fun root ladder climb up a mountain (similar to Wavine Cyrique falls hike) and then some more stairs and in typical Dominica fashion, you end up in someone's backyard. :)So I'm glad that I did this hike, it was beautiful and difficult and worth every scratch, ache and pain that I'm going to feel in my hips, knees and ankles the rest of the evening tonight and most likely tomorrow as well! This was a great (probably) last hike on Dominica. Thank you!
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