Morne Trois Pitons National Park

Morne Trois Pitons National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Morne Trois Pitons National Park occupies the mountainous southern centre of Dominica, the wildest and least developed island of the eastern Caribbean, which lies between the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique and must not be confused with the Dominican Republic. It contains nearly all the natural sights for which the island is visited, and they are scattered at the ends of several different roads, within half an hour to an hour of Roseau, the capital, where the cruise ships dock, and of the small hotels of the Roseau valley, so that one explores it on a series of separate excursions, by hire car, by taxi or with one of the island's many licensed guides. Visitors buy a site pass, for a day or a week, at the visitor centres and from tour operators. The easiest and most popular sites are the Emerald Pool, in the north of the park on the road across the island, where a loop path of fifteen minutes through the rainforest leads to a small waterfall dropping into a green grotto;

the Trafalgar Falls, above the village of Trafalgar, a walk of ten minutes to a platform facing two tall cascades side by side, with hot springs among the boulders below the taller one; and Titou Gorge, at the village of Laudat, a deep, narrow cleft filled with cold water, through which one swims, in a life jacket, to a waterfall at the far end. The Freshwater Lake, reached by road above Laudat, has a circuit path of an hour along the ridges round it, and the Boeri Lake is forty-five minutes' walk beyond. Middleham Falls, one of the highest on the island, is reached by a forest walk of about an hour each way. The great adventure is the hike to the Boiling Lake, which starts at Titou Gorge, takes six to eight hours there and back over steep, muddy, stepped terrain, and should be made with a guide. A cable car to the lake was under construction.

Visiting Morne Trois Pitons National Park: what you will see

The national park was established in July 1975, the first in Dominica and one of the first in the eastern Caribbean, covers about 69 square kilometres, and was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1997, the first natural site in that region to be so recognised. It takes its name from Morne Trois Pitons, the mountain of three peaks, 1,342 metres, the second highest on the island, one of five volcanic centres within the park. Dominica is the youngest island of the Lesser Antilles and the most volcanically active, with nine potentially live volcanoes, more than any other country of its size, and the park is the place where that activity shows at the surface, in some fifty fumaroles, hot springs, mud pots and warm streams. The Valley of Desolation, which the trail to the Boiling Lake crosses, is a wide gash in the forest, bare of trees, where the ground steams, streams run in colours of grey, blue, black, orange and white from the minerals they carry, and the air smells of sulphur; it is thought to have been created by a steam explosion in 1880, which scattered ash over Roseau. Beyond it lies the Boiling Lake, a cauldron some sixty metres across, in a cliff-walled basin, whose grey-blue water, heated by gases escaping from molten rock beneath, seethes and bubbles in the centre beneath a permanent cloud of vapour;

it is a flooded fumarole, the second largest hot lake of its kind in the world after one in New Zealand, and its level rises, falls and occasionally drains away altogether. It was first described in 1875 by two Englishmen working on the island. Round these scars grows some of the finest rainforest in the Caribbean, five distinct types according to altitude, from tall forest of gommier and chataignier trees, with buttresses and hanging lianas, through montane thicket to elfin woodland on the wind-blasted summits, a dwarf forest hung with mosses and drenched by up to seven or eight metres of rain a year. Dominica has two parrots found nowhere else, both of which live in the park and its neighbour to the north: the imperial amazon, or sisserou, a large, shy, purple and green bird, the national emblem, which appears on the flag and is reduced to a few dozen or a few hundred individuals, and the more numerous red-necked amazon, or jaco. The park also has the agouti, the manicou opossum, a dozen bats, the boa, harmless tree lizards, and a large frog known as the mountain chicken, once the national dish, which a fungal disease has brought to the edge of extinction. On 18 September 2017 Hurricane Maria crossed the island at full strength, stripping the forest of its leaves and branches over the whole park and destroying most of the country's buildings; the recovery of the vegetation has been swift, though the tall canopy will take decades, and the trails have been rebuilt.

Morne Trois Pitons National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park can be visited all year. The drier season, from about February to May, is the best time for the longer walks, with less mud, lower streams and clearer views, though in these mountains rain falls in every month and on most days, generally in short, heavy showers. The wet season, from June to November, is also the hurricane season, with the greatest risk from August to October, when trails may be closed after storms and rivers can rise dangerously within minutes; the Titou Gorge and the river crossings on the Boiling Lake trail should not be attempted in or after heavy rain.

On days when cruise ships are in port, mainly from November to April, the Emerald Pool and Trafalgar Falls are crowded from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, and are best visited early or late. Start the Boiling Lake hike by eight in the morning at the latest. Wear shoes with a good grip that can get wet, and bring a waterproof, swimming things, a change of clothes and plenty of water. Allow three to four days. Roseau, the sulphur spa of Wotten Waven and the diving and whale-watching coast of Soufriere are all close.