Sage Mountain

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. Since Sunday is HB's only day off, I think I'm going to stop posting on Sundays to better enjoy his time off with him. The good news is, by taking Sunday off to hang out with HB, I have lots of exciting things to share with you during the week. 

Yesterday started out a beautiful day, and after our morning coffee, and some time spent reading, HB and I decided to try and get some exercise and check out one of the BVI's National Parks, so we headed to Sage Mountain in hopes of some hiking and education. 

Sage Mountain is the highest mountain on Tortola, and also the highest mountain in the BVI, with its summit at around 1716 feet. I'm sure my Colorado readers consider that more of a hill, but they call it a mountain here. Sage Mountain is also a National Park, and has a couple miles of trails for the more intrepid Tortola residents. 

We arrived at the Sage Mountain car park and studied the informational sign, which included a map of the trails, before setting out on the main trail towards the main park gate, but were stopped short by the muddy mess the rains from the previous night had made of the trail. Normally, a little mud wouldn't be a problem, but HB and I both only brought one pair of tennis shoes to the island, so until we acquire second pairs, we're trying to keep these in the best shape we can.

Stymied by the mud, we took the secondary trail leading from the car park, "Slippery Trail". The trail, although dirt, was wide enough and graded enough to pass for a road, and after getting to a nice vantage point, we decided we didn't want to intrude on anyone's property, and we headed back to the car park. All in all, we hiked maybe half a mile yesterday, but we saw a bit of the island we hadn't seen before, and I'm sure we'll be returning to explore Sage Mountain National Park a bit more.

From this point on the Slippery Trail, we could see ocean in three directions

Looking towards Radio Mountain; the mountainside is so brown because the trees were stripped of their leaves during Hurricane Earl

HB on the trail, enjoying the sun

Although I failed to include perspective in this photo, these elephant ear philodendrons were huge -- a single leaf could easily have covered my entire torso.

The best view of all was from the road going to Sage Mountain: overlooking Cane Garden Bay.