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St.
Croix Caledonia Gut |
A walk up a mostly dry streambed. | |||
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Length: 1.5 miles. Time: 1.5 hours round trip. Difficulty: 2-4. This walk involves rock hopping in some sections of the dry streambed. Trailhead: At the foot of the Caledonia Valley coming up the gut and in from the beach on Route 63. It's the same location as the quarry. In the USVIs, gut is the term of a stream bed, and that's what this walk involves, a walk up a normally dry stream bed to a 50-foot high waterfall that sometimes runs, only after it's been raining. The road may be fenced off and if so, you'll have to walk up the gut the entire way. It usually flows only after rains and even then the water level is low. If you happen to be here in March and August you should see throngs of soldier crabs moving through the gut as they travel to the ocean to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, the walk is a lot more open than it used to be. Many of the trees along the gut were burned in 1995; before that you couldn't see the sky. You'll soon reach a dam built in the 1950s. You'll have to scramble up a tree to get to the top. The tall shining kapok tree on the left is like a lighthouse; a tree this big would have made several canoes. You'll also pass a slave wall from an old cocoa plantation as well as cocoa trees. The gut will become narrower and the rocks larger and slicker as you continue. You'll have to scramble up some of those rocks to reach the base of the waterfall at a confluence about 1.5 miles from the beach. |
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