#ausable chasm

AuSable Chasm 🏕️

We tent-camped at AuSable Chasm Campground with very little foliage between the campsites. I highly recommend signing up for the lantern tour. It took about an hour and a half to do the full yellow trail in the dark, but the trail was easy (bar for a lot of steps) and we got s’mores as a treat.

I was fortunate enough to be able to go see the eclipse and, to my shock, my camera actually got some semi-decent photos of it

I saw the event from Ausable Chasm in New York

The Rainbow Falls of Ausable Chasm

There were thin clouds throughout the event which gave the sun a halo

An assemblage of partial phases before and after totality. I never quite figured out which settings worked best so that's why there's a noticeable lack of consistency in the color and brightness.

I’m a little behind on actually processing and posting my photos, but I have been doing a lot of hiking and shooting in the past few months. So, going back to August 7th when A and I went on a mini road trip to Ausable, NY, about an hour and a half away, to visit this spot on the Ausable river. 

Often refered to as the Grand Canyon of the east, the gorge has been open to the public as a tourist attraction since 1870.  The gorge itself is approximately two miles long, with walls ranging from 40 -100 feet tall, and was carved by the fast flowing waters of the Ausable River as it makes its way to Lake Champlain over thousands of years. 

Rainbow falls, one of the best known sections of the Chasm, can be viewed from two different locations along the trail. First from the base of the Chasm where the tour begins, and again from the top of the chasm at a veiwing platform at the end of the tour.

We took the river trail with a tour guide that takes you through the lower levels of the chasm, the inner sanctum, and crosses a couple rope and board bridges, and gave a brief history of the area. There had been a heavy rain storm a few days before we went, and our guide told us that the river had risen so high after that the paths and ladders we were walking along had been underwater. Due to the danger of the high water and fast moving river, the package we had is not always available.

The Elephants head, another very well known feature of the chasm located in the inner sanctum, and the one I remembered from visiting as a kid in the early 90′s.

One of the bridges we crossed with our guide. It moved, a lot. 

The stair case leading down into the Chasm to begin the adventure tour. My knees were not impressed.

After passing the Elephants head and crossing a second bridge, the trail becomes self guided, sending you up to walk along the cliffs near the top of the chasm.

This post is getting long, so there will likely be a second part featuring the areas around the top of the chasm, and some smaller gorges near by. 

This was a place that has been on my bucket list for years, but i was always hesitant to go knowing its not cheap and and often crowded with tourists, and I knew my chances of being able to bring in a tripod and get the shots I wanted without tourists in my frame holding up phones would be slim. 

Due to Covid and social distancing however, I got my chance this summer. The number of peple allowed in at once was extremely limited and we only saw a handful of people in the three hours we were there, and reservations had to be made ahead of time.  I knew that this would make it the perfect time to visit as a photographer and am happy to have gotten my chance. 

In a normal summer, they have weather dependent rafting packages on the days where it is safe to tube down the lower parts of the chasm, as well as a more advanced adventure tour featuring climbing sections and more bridges than we were able to cross.

Ephemeral and Ancient formations