Every named river in the Adirondack Park — the Hudson, the Moose, the Raquette, the Sacandaga, and the rivers that drain the High Peaks.
Ampersand Brook drains the northern slopes of Ampersand Mountain and feeds into the Saranac River system near Tupper Lake — a cold, steep-gradient stream that runs through mixed hardwood and hemlock corridors. The brook takes its name from the mountain it drains, which itself was named for a surveyor's mark that looked like an ampersand (&) on early maps. Most paddlers and anglers encounter it as a feeder or crossing rather than a destination — it's shallow, fast, and overhung with alders in its lower reaches. The upper headwaters are accessible only via the Ampersand Mountain trailhead, where the brook runs audibly through the woods on the approach hike.
