After a great hike up Gros Piton the day before, we decided we wanted to tackle the Petit Piton hike with Bob and Christine. Petit Piton has a reputation of being a dangerous hike by many since it is not sanctioned by the Government of St. Lucia. Christine ran into one of the guides a few days earlier and talked to him about the hike, and he said it really isn't as difficult as everyone makes it out to be. So when Christine relayed this information to us, we decided we'd give it a shot.
We woke up early and headed to the trailhead which was actually within walking distance of Sugar Beach where we were all moored. We met up with our guide, Expert, who is the son of the guy who Christine talked to a few days ago. After the first 5 - 10 minutes of the hike, we realized this was going to be more of a climb than a hike. The hike consisted of climbing up boulders, crevices, pulling yourself up the cliff via ropes and vines from the trees. There really wasn't any part of the trail where you didn't have to hold onto something to avoid falling off the side of the mountain. It was incredibly steep. It took us some time, but we all made it to the top! Lucky that we had such a great group and everyone was so encouraging, because there were definitely some treacherous parts that were scary to climb up. Expert was a fantastic guide, telling us where to put our feet and how to climb up certain parts of the trail. The way down turned out to be much better than we all expected (most of us being a little weary about climbing down and potentially falling off the side of the cliff).
As our fears subsided at various points along the trail, we got some pretty great pictures!
Here's a shot of some of the climbing up the Petit Piton trail (not even close to the hardest/scariest part)
Gene, Expert, and Bob on the shoulder of Petit Piton (about half way up)
Half way up looking north - it looks like Gene is painted into this picture!
Town of Soufriere in the distance
We made it to the top!
Here we are on top of Petit Piton with Soufriere in the background below.
View of Gros Piton from the top
View looking east from the top
Bob, Gene, and Expert at the top of Petit Piton
Bob and Christine at the top of Petit Piton with Gros Piton in the background
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