Boiling water
Steam over the crater.
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The Boiling Lake is a flooded fumarole in Dominica's Morne Trois Pitons National Park. Greyish-blue water boils and churns at its centre, usually wrapped in a cloud of steam. It is 60 to 75 m across and the second-largest hot lake in the world, after one in New Zealand. The first recorded sighting was in 1870. In 1875 the scientists Prestoe and Nicholls measured the water at the edges at 82 to 92°C and could not measure the boiling centre. The lake's level changes from time to time: it vanished after a steam blast in 1880, and it dropped 10 m between December 2004 and April 2005, then refilled in a single day. Reaching it means a hard round-trip hike of 6 hours or more through dense rainforest, over ridges and rivers. On the way is the Valley of Desolation, a colourful rocky land of steam vents, hot springs and mud pools. Then you stand on the crater rim and watch the steam rise from the boiling water. The lake is 10 km in a straight line east of Roseau. Sources give about US$5 for a single site, around EC$13.50, or about US$12 for a week pass covering all sites. A local guide is recommended, as the trail is long and easy to lose in mist. Keep back from the edge and never touch the water.
Steam over the crater.
Vents and coloured springs.
A trail over ridges and rivers.
Morne Trois Pitons National Park; trail starts at Laudat or Titou Gorge
A local guide is recommended; the trail is long and hard.
6 hours or more round trip.