Canyoneering Dominica?

[Scott P]

http://www.extremedominica.com/images/thecathedral.jpg
Anyone interested in canyoneering Dominca? I had to use a free plane ticket and will be heading there in December. The canyons look pretty awesome.

[moabmatt]

Hi Scott,

I spent some quality time the past couple winters on Dominica. I went there after watching a kayaking video that had a segment on the island. The video was called "Hotel Charly." While the kayakers lamented about the low volume flows and narrowness of the canyons, I interpreted that as it being a great place for canyoning! I wasn't disappointed.

There wasn't any info online so I ordered all the topos of the island from the British Ordnance Survey (Dominica used to be a British territory) and poked around the island for a month on my own. The scale is 1:50000, so they're not the detail we're use to, but they certainly help a lot. While there I met Richard from Cocoa Cottages. He runs a great guest house in upper Roseau Valley and he had just started guided his guests in one of the canyons there which he calls Cathedral Canyon. It's an awesome little canyon, great for first timers. I've done a bit of guiding for Richard and stay at his cottage and can honestly say that he runs a great service. For folks not wanting a guide I'd still recommend staying at Cocoa Cottages and getting some good beta from them. His place is centrally located for accessing the canyons dropping into Roseau Valley.

I've gone in late January through February when it's thier "dry" season. The higher elevations of the island average just over 300" of rain a year!

Recently some French guys from Martinique really started getting after it and have published some good info at:
http://ankanionla-madinina.com/CanyondeDominique.aspx

Have fun down there!