Adventures in the Adirondacks: Ausable Chasm

Ausable Chasm is known as “The Grand Canyon of the Adirondacks.”  It is a sandstone gorge that is about two miles long, carved by the Ausable River through the 500-million-year-old Cambrian Period Potsdam Sandstone around 10,000 years ago. The Ausable River runs through it and empties into Lake Champlain and is fed at the south end by the 91-foot-tall Rainbow Falls. 

Though not as grand as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, this chasm boasts of a continuous exposure of a section of the sandstone that is more than 520 miles thick with a bonus of having a rare, mid-Cambrian jellyfish fossil embedded on it. My geologist husband would surely appreciate having a look at this, as well as the many rock formations that it is famous for – The Cathedral, Devil’s Oven, Elephant’s Head, The Grand Flume, The Broken Needle, Sentinel Rock, and Table Rock. With names like these, I thought he would have the time of his life exploring.

In addition, we get to do a bit of hiking as there are several trails in the area – but nothing too challenging since my son was not too keen on doing a lot of hiking on this trip (he had other ideas), I was not in the best of shape, and the weather at the time of our visit was rather unpredictable with on-and-off thunderstorms and rain showers.

We purchased tickets for the regular Walking Tour. This basically gives you access to the four trails at the chasm – the Inner Sanctum Trail for one mile, the Rim Walk Trail for two miles, the Dry Chasm Trail for one and a half miles, and the Rainbow Falls/Elephant’s Head Trail for half a mile (I am using miles here as they use the imperial system in the U.S.). These are all self-guided walks.  

There are also float tours via rafts or tubes that could be added to the basic package. The float tours take you to the narrowest and deepest part of the chasm between the towering cliffs of the Grand Flume, pass the Broken Needle, and around the Whirlpool Basin, but we opted out of it because of the limited time that we have and the weather was not really conducive for these activities.  

For the more adventurous ones, there is an Adventure Trail that bundles the walking tours, the float tours, plus additional thrills via ferrata, a protected climbing route that includes crossing a steel cable bridge that runs across the rocks, climbing a cargo net, and edge walks. This one, we definitely couldn’t do due to the many requirements that we didn’t meet -  eight years old and above (my son was seven that time); a minimum of 63 inches reach, 50 to 250 pounds weight, and maximum waist size of 54 inches for climbers (we didn’t bother to measure since we had already failed the first criterion); no heart condition; no neck or back injury (I have scoliosis, so was not sure if this counts); no injured or immobile limbs; no pregnant climbers.

We did the Rainbow Falls/Elephant’s Head Trail first since it is the shortest and the closest from the Visitor Centre where we bought our tickets. The short walk provides a view of the falls and the rock formation that is shaped like an elephant’s head.  

Then we crossed the bridge to the other side to access the Rim Walk Trail. This is the easiest of all as it is basically a forest walk on a woodchip trail dotted with picnic areas and rain shelters. There are also small bridges and cliff-side viewpoints that provide a stunning bird’s eye view of the falls and the chasm below. Interpretative signs along the pathway provide explanations of some of the area’s natural history.

The real fun began when we embarked on the Inner Sanctum Trail. The guide at the gate told us that this is the most scenic one.  As the name suggests, this trail features natural stone walkways along the inner sanctum of the chasm, along with a network of wooden stairs and hanging bridges. This is where one can get riverside views of unique rock formations and geological oddities underneath the towering sandstone cliffs.  We even came across a cave filled with inukshuks (traditional Inuit stone landmarks or cairns, often in human form, used for navigation, marking sacred spots, or guiding caribou for hunting) in every corner.

The rain started to pour really hard as we were halfway on our descent. The water made the stone walkways slippery, and it became challenging holding on to the railings while adjusting our raincoats and hoods. It was a good thing we brought ours. There were others holding umbrellas, so it was a little bit trickier for them to maintain balance as we were trudging the narrow path along the chasm, with one hand on the rails and the other trying not to lose the umbrella in the wind. Our trek was something like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie.

We didn’t take the path all the way down as the rain did not show any signs of stopping soon. We were glad to see a little wooden house, a station for the guides, and the lady there told us that we could keep on going down the path if we wanted to get to the very bottom of the chasm (where the raft and tube rides are, and which we weren’t doing), or we could take the next stairs up that connects to the Rim Walk Trail (the primeval forest path) which would lead us back to the Visitor Centre.

We chose the latter. We had enough of the Indiana Jones adventure for the day, plus we were terribly soaked from all that rain, my boys were hungry, I needed to go to the washroom, and my son wanted to do the gem-panning at the Visitor Centre. The walk back to the centre through the easy trail still took us 20 minutes, but I did not complain. At least, the grounds were level. The guide mentioned two other trails that are far more challenging than the Inner Sanctum Trail.

The first one is called Dry Chasm Trail that features a natural steep terrain. There are two sections – the Big Dry Chasm and the Little Dry Chasm that both run parallel to the Ausable River. They are actually ancient riverbeds that dried up thousands of years ago. The many curious rock formations along the trails prove that these were once raging waterways.  Apparently, this trail is a good introduction to Adirondack wilderness style of hiking, and they would only recommend this trail to those who have already done the full Inner Sanctum Trail without trouble.

The second one, called the Cave and Falls Hike is Ausable Chasm’s most challenging trail and is accessed only through a guided tour. This section of the trail was maintained from 1870 until the devastating floods of the 1990s wiped out the railings and bridges. Today’s tours explore the ruins of the original trail, and the guides bring the hikers into the Devil’s Oven Cave and into the mists of the Rainbow Falls. This tour involves scrambling over boulders, navigating uneven rock ledges, and climbing a steep 150-foot staircase…definitely not for the physically unfit like me.

We felt better once we reached the Visitor’s Centre. Dry, relieved and satiated, we relaxed for a bit while shopping for some souvenirs. My son really wanted to do the gem-panning activity.  It wasn’t the real thing, of course…if was the kiddie version where you could purchase a bag of sand already filled with rough gems, pour the sand, and wash it off in a sifting tray in the wooden sluice machine modeled from those used in the gold rush era, and wait until all the sand is gone to reveal the hidden gems.

The bags came in two sizes. The four-ounce bag sold for $10 at the time of our visit, and the eight-ounce one sold for $20. My husband thought getting the bigger one provided more value for money as you would be guaranteed to get bigger gems. He estimated the weight of the bags on display, felt though the sand, and chose the “lucky” bag for our son. True enough, his first haul was a big piece of amethyst, followed by a cluster or smaller semi-precious gems, arrowheads, shark’s teeth, and fossils. He got a medium-sized crystal point as well. It was a fun and productive activity, judging from all the rocks we got to bring home (yay…in addition to the already 50 boxes of rocks that my husband had collected from everywhere and now sitting in our basement).

My son saw a sign for another geological activity – breaking your own geodes. But the lady at the counter told us that the actual breaking would not be done onsite. You have to buy the geode and break it with a hammer when you get home. It wasn’t as fun, so we didn’t do it.

We left the centre and drove back to Lake Placid with the intention of stopping at Santa’s Workshop, another Adirondack attraction, which was only 20 minutes away from our hotel.

Unfortunately, when we arrived there, we found out that it was closed on that day, so we would have to go back the following day, which worked out fine as it was still pouring hard. I couldn’t imagine the kids having fun under all that rain.

On the drive back, we ate the cold, leftover pizza slices from the previous night plus some take along sandwiches, and amused ourselves by admiring the rustic charm of the Adirondack cottages with the iconic Adirondack chairs perched on their front yards. With the mountains in the backdrop and the overcast sky, littered by a profusion of lakes and small waterfalls, the breathtaking scenery brought me peace.

My bucolic musings were suddenly interrupted by our son, who had just finished his snack. The rain had stopped and the skies were brightening up, so he asked where we were going next. I told him that we should probably just go back to the hotel to rest and that we will have dinner at a nice restaurant in the evening. 

He paused for a bit then said, “It’s not evening yet, right? Do you notice that there’s no more rain? And since the Santa place is closed today and you don’t seem to have any other plans, why don’t we go to the golf place?”

On our way to the hotel the day before, he spotted this pirate-themed mini-putt course and asked if we could go. I told him that it was too late in the day, that I’d think about it, and that if we had extra time, we could, depending on the weather. I guess he kept that in mind because he was reminding us now…smart kid, that one!

My husband gave me the look that said, “You were the one who promised…so you better answer him.” I realized our seven-year-old boy thought about it well before he even asked. It was true that the sun had come out and that we had not decided on an alternative place to go to because we had not anticipated the unavailability of the Santa place (we should have paid attention to the schedule posted on their website), and that dinner was not until three hours later. There was really no reason for us to say “no” to him. We didn’t have a back-up plan, or an excuse, so I agreed.  

At the back of my mind, I was saying to myself, “Man, that was good. Our little boy could be a good lawyer or diplomat one day.” And even if I didn’t look at him, I could tell that my husband was secretly smiling and thinking, “He got you again!”

But I was pretty sure he also wanted to go to the golf course and play mini-putt.