The Quill, located at the southern end of the island was formed by a extint volcano. Towering at 600m (~2000ft), it is the highest point on Statia. Inside the crater of the Quill is a tropical rainforest.
Larry and I set out about 7am one morning to climb it. The Quill does not look like much, but it takes several hours to climb it, especially if you were with us. At a fork in the path down at the base, Larry chose the wrong path. Instead of taking the trail up to the crater, we ended up taking a trail that went about half way up and then around to the otherside. Seeing our mistake, we were at the southern most end of the outer trail, we decided to jump off the trail and climb straight up to the peak. With no guided path and a steep incline, we inched our way up hanging on and pulling ourselves up the slop tree by tree.
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Exhausted:
After a couple of hours of climbing up the steep side tree by tree, I was beat. It was around noon time before we reached the top. We finally did it. The view from the rim was awesome:
After navigating around the rim, to where the trail we were supposed to of followed, we reached the rim, we found the only trail that led down into the crater. If you like climbing, you would like the Quill. That's all we did, up and down. After about a forty-five minute climb down into the crater, we finally reached the bottom and entered the rein of the lizards and hermit crabs. Yes hermit crabs, in the millions. The tropical rainforest here is quite different than the rest of the island. The rest of the island gets very little rain and is more scrub. If you ever go to Statia, a hike up the Quill is a must!
