8/8 Ausable Chasm, NY

It has been 50 years since I have been to AuSable Chasm, and I think a lot has changed, at least from what I remember.  For one thing, there were a LOT of people, but I suppose I need to do a better job of getting used to this, at least until the kids go back to school!  I also can't remember paying over $31 to walk down the chasm and take the raft part way.

This is looking upstream at the area where the river was originally dammed for a power plant.

First, you have to walk a mile--partly at the top of the chasm and partly down inside it.

If you want to pay an extra chunk of money, you can do some rock climbing and walk over the chasm on wire bridges.

At this point, there were a lot of steps to climb down into the lower walkway.

After your mile walk, you reach the area where you climb onto boats or tubes to float farther down the river.  There was a VERY long line, like at least an hour wait.  Grrrr.

No photos getting on the raft because I was too busy trying not to fall and getting my shoes wet in the 6" of water in the bottom.  The first part is just a lazy float.

At a couple of narrow places, the rafts had to squeeze by people on tubes.

Ahead are some rapids.  Notice that the people in tubes have to get out and walk past them.  We on the rafts got to go down them and get a little wet.

Looking behind me at the rapids we had gone down.  It was a little exciting, but at least the guide steered the raft so we went down front-first.  Once past this area, the tubers could get back in the water.

We are reaching the end.  You can tell that the rock walls are not as tall here.

The guide helped pull up those of us who had trouble getting out.

The rafts get a ride up the hill.  The rest of us had to climb several flights of stairs to the shuttle pickup area.

 

It was a nice, scenic walk and raft trip, but the best part was that the temperatures were in the low 70s.  I cannot imagine doing this in the 90s.