![]() That’s a lot of altitude for a girl raised in the cornfields of the Midwest and groomed in the grid of Manhattan. Mt St Catherine (Grenada, 840m/2756ft).Soufriere (St Vincent, 1234m/4049ft) and.Morne Diablotins (Dominica, 1397m/4583ft).Soufriere (Guadeloupe, 1467m/4813ft, climbed January 2016).Chances Peak (Montserrat, 915m/3002ft, off limits due to recent volcanic activity).Mt Scenery (Saba, 887m/2910ft, climbed February 2016).Mount Liamuiga (St Kitts, 1156m/3792ft).Paradise Peak (St Martin, 424m/1391ft).Signal Hill (St Thomas, 435m/1427ft, on the to-do-list for March 2016).Cerro de Punta (Puerto Rico, 1338m/4390ft).Working down the chain and up the higher peaks, there is: The first to come is the tallest: Pico Duarte (Dominican Republic, 3098m/10,164ft) it’s on our to-do-list for May 2016. Approaching each island, I look out over the horizon to pick out which peaks we will hike – usually the tallest, sometimes the greenest and always the steep volcanoes. In the Caribbean islands, as soon as the flats of the Bahamas recede, mountains soar from the sea and prod the clouds. From the Summit at Pelee, Martinique Up, Up and Away The journey is just the best way to get there, ideally using nothing but the wind, the sun and your body. You shout the proclamations of a goal completed, because it really is about the destination. You repeat to yourself “On, On!” hiking and “Sail ho!” sailing, knowing how sweet it will finally be to utter “Summit ho!” and “Land ho!” You are surrounded by endless trees on the mountain and endless waves in the sea as far as the eye can see, and further yet you realize the further you go. Both afford complete isolation, slogging along slowly and blindly toward a coveted destination. Midway up Pelee, MartiniqueĪ hill to climb is rather like a sea to sail on a long passage, one nautical mile at a time. There is a hill to climb, one step at a time. There are few other hikers passing to distract you in sedentary conversation. There are no vistas along the way tempting you off the trail to snap a selfie. There is nothing to do but keep planting foot after foot, keep firing quad muscle after quad muscle, keep breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth, all the way up the mountain. If there are plants or trees at hand’s reach, they’re prickly. If there are leaves or rocks underfoot, they’re slippery. We’re searching for handholds in the roots and rocks, or hand-over-hand on ropes tied to trees. We’re weaving up a path worn into the rich, burnt-orange volcanic mud that is deeper than our knees and no wider than our hips. My favorite hikes in the eastern Caribbean are the ones where we’re socked in by dense rainforest or cloud forest – thick green moss carpeting the rocks and trees, lush green trees creating walls around us and ceilings over us, heavy white fog filling every free crevice and dripping down our faces. Morne Trois Piton National Park, Dominica It’s About the Destination, Not the Journey Pelee, Martinique ![]() In the Caribbean islands, you’re going to go up, so you might as well go straight up. ![]() And if it’s a round trip along the same trail, the decline will be climbed up in reverse on the way back, after all the adrenaline from summiting has long since faded. Our driver in Dominica verbalized the arduous lesson our calves and quads have been schooled in repeatedly over the last year of Caribbean hiking: “What comes down must go up.” Don’t be fooled: Any relief you think you’re getting in a decline is foiled by twice the burn on the next incline, making up for the lost elevation.
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