Prep Day

September 13, 2021

We left Kingston, NY, heading upstate on Monday morning, September 13, 2021. We made a few stops on our way toward Plattsburgh, a cheaper accommodation alternative to Burlington. Whitehall is a small town with not a lot going on, but it is on the northern leg of the Empire State Trail. It is also an ancestral home of my great, great, grandfather who was a canal barge captain. At least according to my sister and Ancestry.com. Whitehall had a canal lock and public restrooms with showers for boaters and, I imagine, bicyclists. We drove NY22/9/EST to Fort Ticonderoga. Fort Ticonderoga National Monument is closed on Mondays. Ausable Chasm further up the road was open.

Ausable Chasm has hiking trails, rafting and adventure trails with shaky bridges all throughout this gorgeous gorge. The simplest ticket starts around $18 per adult for a two mile hike. Don’t be like me, spring for the raft combo.

We nabbed a nice hotel in Plattsburgh and I refined our plan. Instead of a three ferry loop, I would be doing a one ferry crescent into Burlington. My wonderful wife would follow a few hours later and we would rendezvous in Burlington, Vermont.

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Kathleen JonesI can’t believe how many people on this site have been to Ausable Chasm this year. I lived in Plattsburgh as a kid and Ausable Chasm was a common day trip destination for families. It was one of those places that had employees put bumper stickers on cars in their parking lots (although at the time they used wires to affix them around the chrome bumpers - we’re talking 1960s here). That meant everyone in a 100 mile radius of Ausable had a car advertising the chasm. I hadn’t thought of that place at all since then. Now look at it - a CycleBlaze hotspot. And wouldn’t you know one of my brothers was there this summer too.
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2 years ago