Rafting with Danger Dave

I grew up in Plattsburgh, NY, but somehow my siblings and I NEVER went to Ausable chasm!

Until yesterday.
With my brother-in-law’s adventurous relatives in town, we knew we wanted to go.
The seven of us signed up for rafting and enjoyed walking the trails to get down there.
We got there around three, and rafting was very popular, so we had to wait maybe 30 minutes.

We’re an easily entertained bunch, so we didn’t mind.
We really enjoyed watching people and their tubes splashing into the water, groups loading into rafts and taking off, and the rafts, tubes, and life preservers being lowered down to the platform via a giant crane!

All the staff on hand were professional, helpful, and very nice.

Enter Dave,
who later, once we were in our raft, told us his true name: Danger Dave 🙂

He introduced himself to us, let us know the rules, and even helped us into the raft.
We’ll never know whether it was my enthusiasm, my arm muscles, or the fact that one of the original people picked (my sister) had to decline because she wanted to take pictures, but by some combination of those factors I was picked to be a paddler along with another woman in our party.

Danger Dave was very clear about what was expected of us, and, soon, we were off and paddling!

Ok, we didn’t have to paddle that much really 🙂
We all enjoyed the raft ride.

Danger Dave was very knowledgable and told us some awesome stuff. We loved learning about how the chasm has changed over geological time, and even about the recent changes after Hurricane Irene!

He even held his cool in the rapids, which, we all thought, was a highlight of the rafting trip.

At the end of our ride, he said we had enough time to snap a quick photo of our party and the raft, and offered to take it. Not only is Danger Dave a good guide, he’s a great photographer too!

We all had a great time, and, even today (one day later) we’re all talking about how much fun we had! Thank you for such a great time!