Climbing via ferrata: Ausable Chasm provides safe options for beginners

Popular tourism attraction is ahead of the curve in adopting European-engineered rock climbing techniques

By Phil Brown

If you’ve ever looked at Ausable Chasm from the Route 9 bridge, you probably have been impressed by the huge volume of water plunging over Rainbow Falls and roaring and churning through the narrow gorge below. And perhaps you wondered what it would be like to enter the bowels of this natural wonder.

I certainly did. I wanted not only to walk beneath the sandstone walls, but also to climb them. Luckily, the folks who operate Ausable Chasm (which is a private business) offer two safe options for those drawn to vertical adventure: a via ferrata and top roping. 

One afternoon in September, I signed up for both. Afterward I hiked through the gorge along well-marked trails, stopping often to stare down at the foam-flecked water. By the day’s end, I had acquired a much deeper appreciation of Ausable Chasm than can be got from a highway bridge.

The via ferrata

I first came across the term via ferrata — Italian for “iron way”– while planning a trip to the Dolomites in northern Italy. It refers to a system of steel rungs, steps, ladders, bridges, cables and other aids to facilitate movement over steep terrain. During World War I, soldiers in the Dolomites used via ferratas to get around the mountains. Today via ferratas are a popular form of recreation in Europe. In the Alps alone, there are more than a thousand.

On this side of the Atlantic, the sport is catching on. A few dozen or so via ferratas now exist in the United States and more are coming. “We have many projects in development and are seeing increasing interest,” said Mike Friedman of Adventure Partners, which has designed and built nine via ferratas across the country.

Ausable Chasm was ahead of the curve, opening its via ferrata in 2013. It was the first in New York state and remains one of the few in the East. The state’s second via ferrata, built by Adventure Partners, opened last year at the Mohonk House in the Shawangunks downstate.

The Ausable Chasm via ferrata differs from those I climbed in the Dolomites. Rather than ascend hundreds of feet, participants move sideways along the cliffs, crossing the Ausable River four times. The route is about a quarter-mile and usually takes an hour or two to complete, depending on group size.

The via ferrata is designed for inexperienced climbers, not the Alex Honnolds of the world. “This is for families to expose them to the activity,” said Caleb Nappi, the general manager of Ausable Chasm. A climber himself, Nappi said a user can increase the difficulty by eschewing the artificial aids and relying only on the rock for holds.

There are similarities between via ferratas and rock climbs. In both activities, you wear a helmet and harness. Given the relatively easy terrain, though, you don’t need sticky-soled slippers favored by rock climbers (hiking shoes or sneakers suffice). A bigger difference is that on a via ferrata, you are always clipped into a cable to protect against a fall.

Getting started at Ausable Chasm

At Ausable Chasm, all via ferrata parties must be accompanied by a guide. Mine was Chuck Fries. We met at the chasm’s welcome center and descended long flights of stairs to the river. Before proceeding to the via ferrata, I had to demonstrate that I knew the protocol for clipping the cable. 

The harness has two tethers, each with a carabiner that you clip to the cable. As you follow the via ferrata, the carabiners slide along the cable until reaching a bolted anchor. At that point, you unclip one carabiner and place it on the other side of the anchor. Then you do the same with the other carabiner. 

Our journey began on perhaps the scariest section of the via ferrata. We crossed the Ausable on a single strand of steel cable. I won’t say we emulated the high-wire act of the Wallendas since we had cables on either side of us to hold onto. Even so, bouncing around on a thin cable 30 feet above roiling waters tests your nerve. 

The company intentionally put the hardest crossing at the start to weed out the timid. Some customers take a few steps, back off, and try again. Or they might freeze. The guides do their best to encourage the fearful, but sometimes people just can’t screw up the courage to cross. “Of course each day is different,” Fries told me later. “We could have nobody who wants to back off for a few days, then have a day where a half-dozen opt out.” 

We next traversed along ledges with the help of rungs to hang onto. The second river crossing was easier than the first: there were three strands of cable to walk on. Fries nicknamed this bridge “Sneaker Sucker.” Several years ago, a customer’s sneaker got wedged between the cables, and when he tried to free it, the sneaker fell off and floated downriver. The guide gave the customer one of his own shoes to finish the route.

Fries said the mishap hasn’t been repeated, but the guides tell the story as a warning to customers to watch their footing. “It certainly keeps guests on their toes, no pun intended,” he said.

The next two crossings were easier still as wooden treads overlaid the cables. The most challenging scrambling along the cliff occurs in the second half of the route, with some up and down movement. Not to mention the roar of the rapids below.

“After heavy rains, those rapids are huge and extremely loud,” Fries said. “While high water obviously doesn’t make the climb any harder physically, it can make that section mentally more challenging.”

Rock climbing at the chasm

After the via ferrata, Fries handed me over to Luke Weglarz, then a senior in Plattsburgh State’s expeditionary studies program who was certified as a rock-climbing instructor. He led me to a cliff named Jacob’s Ladder, where he had set up a top rope. 

Top roping is one of the safest methods of rock climbing. The rope is run through an anchor high on the cliff. The climber ties into one end of the rope, and as he or she climbs, the belayer pulls in the slack. With a tight belay, a climber will fall only inches in the event of a slip.

Once tied in, I got to the base of the climb by a Tyrolean traverse–that is, I clipped my harness to a cable stretched across the river and pulled myself over the water. Starting up the face, I noticed that the Potsdam sandstone differed from the hard metamorphic rock (primarily anorthosite and gneiss) found at other Adirondack cliffs. After the last ice age, the Ausable River eroded the soft sandstone, creating the deep gorge we see today.

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Though Jacob’s Ladder is steep, the climbing was pretty easy, thanks to numerous horizontal cracks that provided excellent handholds (like rungs). Crack systems like this are unusual in the Adirondacks. It reminded me of the Shawangunks. In fact, Weglarz compared Jacob’s Ladder to two classic climbs in the Gunks that coincidentally I had done just two weeks earlier: High Exposure and Madame G’s. He wasn’t wrong, though Jacob’s Ladder is shorter and not as hard. Once back at the base, I did another enjoyable climb, this time by stemming–that is, pressing my hands and feet into opposite walls and inching upward.

The Mohonk Preserve charges people to climb its cliffs in the Shawangunks, one of the most popular climbing destinations in the Northeast. After leaving Ausable Chasm, I wondered if a similar fee system would work at the chasm if people could climb more or less where they liked, with or without a guide. I imagined that people would jump at the chance to climb the sandstone in a beautiful gorge with a river raging below.

I discussed the idea with Bobby O’Connor, who once worked as a climbing guide at the chasm. During his tenure, he ascended several routes that are not open to the public. “It’s like no other climbing experience in the Adirondacks,” he said. 

And yet O’Connor, who now oversees the outdoor program at Northwood School in Lake Placid, has doubts about opening the whole chasm to climbers because of loose rock. In any case, Nappi said the company has no plans to expand its climbing program beyond guided top roping.

“For those seeking longer or more advanced climbing experiences, we prefer to support the local guiding community and recommend local guides, some of whom started their guiding careers here at Ausable Chasm,” he said.

An ice park?

Nappi is more open to turning Ausable Chasm into an ice-climbing park, along the lines of the one in Ouray, Colorado. Ouray pipes water into a gorge to create thick walls of ice that attract climbers from near and far. Since winter is the slow season at Ausable Chasm, an ice park would seem to make fiscal sense.

In fact, Nappi has researched Ouray’s operation and experimented with “farming ice” on a small scale. The chasm also has natural ice. “We do have a number of nice routes that a few of my friends and I will climb, but not enough to warrant opening it up to the public yet,” he said.

If Ausable Chasm were to farm ice on a large scale, using water from the river, it would need to acquire environmental permits. There also are insurance questions. But an ice park is definitely on Nappi’s radar.

O’Connor has climbed a half-dozen ice routes at the chasm, ranging from novice to expert in difficulty, and cherishes those memories. “You had big, fat blue ice that saw no traffic,” he said. “And you’re down in the heart of the chasm.” 

Perhaps someday other ice climbers will be able to make memories in the chasm. Until then, they’ll have to content themselves with climbing rock in the warmer seasons.

Photo at top: Phil Brown climbs Ausable Chasm’s sandstone by stemming between opposite walls. Photo by Luke Welgarz.