Going to Ladera in two weeks and looking for comments on climbing grosse piton. Do I need to bring hiking boots or are sneakers ok. What is approx round trip time. Where can you get a good box lunch? <BR>and are the trails well marked to do alone or is there a particular guide you can suggest. I hike the adirondaks regularly. <BR>Also planning to do the Rain forest trail. <BR>Any suggestions on that. <BR>

We were told that the Piton hikes are extremely dangerous (steep and ledges that are 4" wide at some points). There are no official tours due to the risk, but you can find locals near the bottom of the mountains who can take you up if you really want to climb them. Good luck!

i just returned from a week in st. lucia. stayed at the hilton, which is right between the two pitons. from what i heard, they are frequently climbed and are not dangerous hikes at all. in fact, if you go to the beach at the hilton, there's a water taxi guy who regularly leads hikes - i didn't catch his name, but i'm sure you could ask any of them for a guide recommendation. also, the people at the ladera desk could certainly recommend someone. everyone from taxi drivers to people who worked at our hotel and guests there said it was a good hike and well worth doing. as for how long it takes, that seemed to vary according to whom you were speaking wth - i'd gather somewhere in the area of four hours round trip. i wish i'd had time to hike up - maybe next trip! <BR> <BR>we also did a rain forest hike - it was set up through the hotel, and was a sunlink tour, i think. it was $50 per person. the reason i'd recommend doing a tour like this is our guide - tony - he was great. drove us all around soufriere and the towns on the way to the mountains with great descriptions of life in the area. he kept pulling over to the side of the road to pull leaves off plants and had us crush them in our hands and smell them to try to guess what they were. it was a small tour - eight people. you have to take an official guide to go through the rain forest, and it's good because they can identify plants, etc. unfortunately, tony wasn't the guide who hiked with us, and the official guide wasn't half as entertaining or informative... but the trip up and back with him was great! <BR> <BR>if you have room for hiking boots, i'd bring them. gets a little slippery. i was fine in sneakers, though. <BR> <BR>hope this helps!

L: <BR> <BR>That's interesting... who knows why we received completely different info than the guests at the Hilton. On both our visits to the island, my husband really wanted to climb the Pitons and grilled many locals about the trails. We were stongly advised against it. <BR> <BR>I suspect the hikes that the Hilton guests said were easy might not have taken them all the way up. <BR> <BR>I still wonder: if the hikes are not dangerous, why aren't there organized tours?

actually, i believe that the gros piton is easier to climb than the petit piton - but i may have them mixed up. that may be where the danger element comes in - i think there are several faces of sheer cliff. however, i did hear from a lot of people that one of them is not terribly difficult - and i really don't believe these people had only climbed part of the way. these climbs were in no way organized by the hilton. <BR> <BR>as for why there are no organized tours, you've got me. maybe there's not enough interest; perhaps they don't want to make more people interested and get too much foot traffic... i have no idea. <BR> <BR>at any rate, gary, check out the rough guides website for info about the mountains, which one is easiest to climb, and how to find guides - or just ask the ladera people.

L, <BR>Thanks for the info. I tried to find roughguides.com and no site came up. <BR>What and where is the rough guides site. <BR>Gary

gary - here's the url for the pitons page on the rough guides website: <BR> <BR>http://travel.roughguides.com/content/12700/30021.htm <BR> <BR>the info about the pitons was hard to find so i did a search for it... if this doesn't work, www.roughguides.com worked on my browser; just click on travel, and then choose st. lucia from the drop-down box. you might want to pick up their travel guide at a bookstore anyway. tiny little book, and very informative and helpful. <BR> <BR>have fun! we ate at dasheene twice and loved it. ladera is beautiful... i am trying to convince my boyfriend to take me there for new year's! <BR> <BR>

Gary I was in St. Lucia the week before Xmas and inquired with a local guide about climbing the Pitons and was told the you may climb Grosse Piton however it is now against the law to attempt a climb on Petit Piton due to the danger.

Thanks everyone and L thanks for link to rough guides. It's a great site that I never knew existed. <BR>I guess it's weird but nobody seems to have actually had first hand experience on climbing the Piton. I would love to hear from somebody. How long the hike was. Was it buggy? Very overgrown?

We were there in November and, although I didn't climb, I did quite a bit of research and talked to those who had climbed. Petit Piton is really difficult and a technical climb...not for the casual hiker. Gros Piton is fairly easy with no technical climbing. There is a village at the inland base of Gros Piton and they are considered experts on climbing Gros. There is a bunch of information at Ladera in the room next to the front office about climbing Gros Piton. Apparently you can get a cab into the village and many of the folks there can serve as your guide. Approximately 4 hours roundtrip and it is mostly just walking on a somewhat steep trail. The earlier post that referred to the hike as dangerous is wrong for Gros, but correct for Petit. By the way, if you are looking out to the sea from Ladera or Jalouise, Gros is on the left and Petit on the right. You will notice that Petit is much more sheer than Gros.

thanks jeff,