Ausable Chasm
63 Ausable Hotel Rd, Keeseville, NY
Keeseville, NY
One of the country's oldest tourist attractions, a narrow sandstone gorge where the Ausable River cuts a deep, shadowed slot on its way to Lake Champlain.
Ausable Chasm is a deep, narrow gorge in the northeastern Adirondacks, where the Ausable River has sawed a canyon of pinkish-brown sandstone on its last run toward Lake Champlain. Opened to visitors in the middle of the nineteenth century, it is one of the oldest tourist attractions in the United States, a place people have come to walk and marvel at for well over a century and a half.
The river drops through the gorge in a series of falls and rapids, and walkways, stairways, and bridges cling to the cliffs and cross the water, so you move both above and beside the torrent. Below the narrowest sections the river calms enough that visitors can float the lower gorge by raft or tube, looking up at the towering walls from the water.
What Guests Love
- Walking the cliffside stairways and bridges high above the rushing river
- The narrow, dramatic slot where the sandstone walls press close together
- Floating the calmer lower gorge by raft or tube
- The mix of easy overlooks and more adventurous scrambles and cable trails
Worth Knowing
- It is a working attraction that welcomes visitors for a fee, with a set season
- The classic route pairs a walk down the rim with a raft or tube back through the lower gorge
- Trails have stairs, wet rock, and drop-offs, so wear good shoes and mind children
- River level can close parts of the gorge after heavy rain, so check conditions
Details
Keeseville, NY
Learn about Ausable Chasm
A gorge cut in ancient sandstone
The walls of the chasm are Potsdam sandstone, a rock laid down as sand on the shore of a shallow sea more than half a billion years ago, among the oldest layered rock in the region. Its warm pink and tan color and its neat horizontal banding give the gorge its distinctive look.
The Ausable River, draining out of the high peaks toward Lake Champlain, has spent the ages since the last ice age cutting down through that sandstone. The result is a narrow, straight-walled canyon, in places deep and only a few strides wide, where the water races through tight passages and drops over ledges in a run of named falls and rapids.
One of America's first tourist draws
People began coming to see the chasm as a curiosity in the eighteenth century, and by the mid-nineteenth it had been developed with walkways and opened as a formal attraction, complete with a hotel and, in time, boat rides through the gorge. That makes it one of the earliest places in the country set up expressly for sightseers, part of the same wave of romantic tourism that sent Victorians to Niagara and the White Mountains.
Floods have torn out the walkways and bridges more than once over the generations, and each time they have been rebuilt, so the network of stairs and spans you walk today carries a long history of repair and reinvention. The land here is the ancestral country of the Mohican and the Mohawk of the Haudenosaunee, who traveled the Champlain valley long before the sightseers arrived.
Walking and floating the chasm
The classic visit descends along the rim, taking in the falls and the narrow passages from bridges and cliffside stairways, then boards a raft or tube for a float back through the calmer lower gorge. Along the way are optional adventure elements, cable-and-plank trails, a via ferrata, and scrambles, for those who want more than the walkway.
The trails involve stairs, wet stone, and real drop-offs, so sturdy shoes and attention to footing matter, especially with children. Because the river drives the whole experience, high water after heavy rain can close parts of the gorge, and it is worth checking conditions before a trip.
The northern Adirondacks around it
The chasm sits at the edge of the Adirondacks where the mountains give way to the Champlain lowlands, so a visit pairs easily with the lake and its ferries to Vermont, or with a drive west into the high peaks. Spring runs the river highest and loudest, and summer is the busy heart of the season, warm and green with the floats at their most popular.
Fall brings brilliant color to the surrounding forest and thinner crowds along the walkways, a fine time to walk the rim. The attraction runs on a warm-weather season and quiets down as winter closes the gorge, though the frozen chasm has its own stark beauty for those who come to look from the rim.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Keeseville
Lake Champlain
About 5 miles
The long lake dividing New York from Vermont, with ferry crossings, sandy shores, and a rich history of forts and naval battles.
Keeseville
About 2 miles
A small village on the Ausable River, notable for one of the oldest surviving iron bridges in the country.
Plattsburgh
About 15 miles
A lakeside city with beaches, a naval-battle history on Lake Champlain, and a gateway to the northern Adirondacks.
Whiteface Mountain
About 30 miles
An Olympic peak with a memorial highway to near the summit and sweeping views over the high peaks and the lake.