Planning a trip to the Wilmington Flume? Learn why the AuSable River's cold currents and hidden hazards make cliff jumping a deadly risk for visitors.
If You're Heading to the Wilmington Flume This Summer, Read This First
The Wilmington Flume looks like a postcard. The West Branch of the AuSable River carves through a narrow gorge, cold and fast, with granite walls and pools deep enough to jump into. Every summer, tourists find it. Every summer, people get hurt. Some don't survive.
Yesterday, a 16-year-old from Ithaca jumped off a cliff into the river and was pulled out with head and knee injuries. Wilmington Fire and Rescue responded. Forest rangers assisted with a technical rope rescue up the steep gorge walls. The teenager was transported to the hospital. It was a routine summer rescue at the Flume — which is to say, it was the kind of thing that happens here regularly.
The documented deaths at the Wilmington Flume span more than a decade. In June 2014, two 17-year-old Plattsburgh teenagers — Taoufik Maknani and Michael Lawson — drowned on the same afternoon. Maknani was supposed to graduate from Plattsburgh High School two days later. His body was spotted by helicopter a quarter mile downstream. Lawson's took four days to recover. About 100 rescue personnel searched the river. By 2017, local media described Matthew Miller's death — a 31-year-old from Ithaca who drowned on July 3 — as "the third in three years," meaning at least one other fatality occurred between 2014 and 2017 that didn't receive the same coverage. Miller had waited two days for water levels to drop before jumping. On his third jump, he surfaced briefly and went back under. Friends tried to rescue him but became exhausted. His body was recovered nearly 24 hours later, 50 yards downstream. In September 2022, a 68-year-old man from Atlanta fell approximately 25 feet into the river near the Flume Trail System after losing his balance. A massive search operation involving State Police dive teams, aviation, K-9 units, drones, and swift water teams was deployed.
These are the deaths that made the news. Town Supervisor Roy Holzer has said plainly: "We've had fatalities — people going into the whirlpool area that they can't recover from." Town Supervisor Randy Preston said injuries occur "about every year." Not every rescue makes the paper. Not every close call gets reported at all.
The West Branch of the AuSable runs cold year-round — cold enough to cause cold water shock, which can make even strong swimmers lose muscle control within seconds of submersion. The current is deceptive; what looks calm on the surface moves fast through the gorge. The pools below the cliff jumps are deep but the underwater geography is uneven, with rocks and whirlpools that aren't visible from above. After the 2014 drownings, twelve days later people were still jumping from the cliffs. When reporters asked swimmers on the shore if they knew two teenagers had died there that summer, none of them did.
There are no lifeguards. There is no formal swimming area. There are no posted warning signs. When rescuers respond, they face a technical extraction from a steep gorge — meaning help takes longer to reach you than almost anywhere else.
The Flume is accessible from Route 86 in Wilmington, near High Falls Gorge. Swimming is not officially sanctioned. Cliff jumping is explicitly dangerous and has killed people.
If you visit, stay on the road and viewing areas. Do not enter the water. Do not let children near the edge. Both former town supervisors on the public record have said the same thing. The view is worth the stop. The swim is not worth the risk.