Exploring The Twin Cities' Underground

Phalen Drain -Part 2

2008-11-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

After weeks of bitching and moaning and shit getting in the way, we finally made it deep into the bowels of the East Side via Phalen Drain. Phalen had so much interesting stuff to offer, from ever-changing architecture to beautiful underground vistas and even some interesting stonework. Its really really long though, so we expect to be exploring the remainder of Phalen later.

We woke up early after a debaucherous weekend (Halloween!), early being 10 AM on a Sunday morning. I met Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Jacques over in Como and we trucked off to the East Side to begin our subterranean adventure. Lacking a third flashlight, we ended up using the light off my bike in conjunction with 2 maglites and brought a shitload of extra batteries.

Those that had brought footwear suited up, and those who didn’t promised to not bitch and moan. Our previous scouting mission showed us that we needed to go downstream to get to the drain itself, so we followed the flow of the water into a huge drain and sloshed through some goop before we could get into the MASSIVE part of the drain.

We followed the downstream path of the water and ended up in a large underground room, which was lit by the outfall. This room had some huge pillars on one side and connected up with the other half of the drain.
Outside the outfall we could see the bright, November sunlight reflecting off the Mississippi. Here is a shot of Jacques and Franklin as Jacques check his new waders. “How the hell do these things work?” he wonders to himself.

The water was absolutely filled with tiny fish that you could feel bump up against your feet in the boots. As we sloshed through the second tunnel, back from where we came from and away from the outfall, we stirred up colonies of fish that would jump desperately out of our way.

As we wandered back up to the Trout Brook intersection up this second tunnel that runs alongside the tunnel we had traversed previously, the air started to get much much cloudier, until picture taking with a flash was no longer possible.

We shortly arrived at some crazy hinged valves that had generated some huge mineral deposits. However, the mineral buildup made these valves into crazy stone monsters! The premier exploring group in the area called them “gargoyles”, and I’d have to agree: though they look like fucking monsters at the same time. Check these things out!

Looks sort of like a dragon too, spewing crazy orange minerals rather than flame.

These dragons guarded the entrance to a side passage that was clouded by steam at the entrance. This tunnel was much smaller than the original Phalen drain and was coated in orange minerals. Mini fountains sprayed up from an unknown source and looked cool.

We continued down this new orange tunnel until we reached a very interesting and sort of unsettling (at least for me) object. The tunnel become much larger and featured some sort of corroded set of doors. Where these doors lead to is very unclear, but it WAS clear that we did not want to be there when they opened. Here is Jacques checking out these mighty floodgates

Another photo of the first layer of floodgates being examined.

An interesting side passage led away from this room. Jacques clearly has balls as he marches down the passage. He reported a ladder that led upwards to a set of horizontal doors that must open up onto a sidewalk somewhere, and that light was coming through.

We marched back towards the main tunnel, passing the guardian dragons and the floor fountains, back through the huge drain and back to the intersection of loud-ass tunnel and big-ass tunnel.

We explored a LOT this day and I really don’t feel like including it all in one post. So far in this post, we have documented what we saw from the entrance to the outfall and back to the entrance. Much more of Phalen will be posted later!

To put it into perspective, here is a crude map depicting this part of phalen drain:
More later! Stay tuned

Davern Drain Revisited

2008-08-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

Hey fellow explorers, both armchair and actual!

Me, Rooster and Jacques took a quick jaunt down to Davern Drain the other day to fill our thirst for underground exploring. Neither Roo nor Jacques had been down to D's Drain, and since my batteries ran out the last time I had been there, I figured it'd be good to snap a few good photos.

We had previously tried to get in a week or two prior, but the constant rains had made the water level so high that access was impossible. The second time proved to be be the charm, and we hopped in after some tricky maneuvers around the still-deep puddle of water at the base of a ladder into a round tunnel.

We knew Davern Drain has a much more extensive second tunnel going off to the left, but the deep water and our total lack of appropriate footwear dissuaded us from exploring the deeper, longer and much older parts of this cool-ass drain. So, shoes first, we plunged into the RCP, headed under the West Seventh district.

After passing through some shindeep pools, we entered the triangular section of the tunnel which sets Davern Drain apart from all the other drains in the Twin Cities. The teardrop/triangular shape is fun to walk through and looks very cool.

We saw some weird fluffy thing laying in the tunnel. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be some very strange kind of mold formation and it squished slightly under my shoe. Weird.

A medium length jaunt through the Trinagular drain ended at the coolest part of Davern Drain: the Atrium. The Atrium, as detailed in our last post on Davern Drain, is a huuge open "room" under some intersection. I'm really bad at guessing distances, but it must be at least over 15 feet high and a good 30 to 40 feet long. The Atrium is a great change from the semi-claustraphobia enducing tunnels underground.... the cielings are high, a breeze is always bringing fresh air from the grate above and a good sized waterfall is constantly pouring down from the upper drain levels.

I like it down there. A lot.

We headed back out and used a side entrance to climb out of the drain in order to escape further foot wetting. We pried open a manhole and scurried away into the woods.

Phalen is next, we only need nice boots. Stay tuned!

-GoxKok

Phalen / Trout Brook

2008-07-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hey folks. It's about time we got down to some serious exploring. Actually, that time was a few weeks ago but here we are nonetheless. We left off last time empty-handed while scouting for the Phalen drain, but this time we struck gold.

Jacques and I had gone out previously and located the outfall of the Phalen drain, only to find that a canoe would be necessary to enter Phalen by outfall. So began yesterday's search for a secondary entrance with Rooster and Franklin that ended up with us deep in a cold, wet drain up to our shins in freezing creek water.

We had a pretty good idea where to find this side entrance, so we set out from the car, down a bunch of hills and began our search in the bowels of Saint Paul. It did take quite a bit of wandering around to finally pin down the entrance, and in the end we heard and smelled the entrance before seeing it. The entrance turned out to be a creek that intermittently disappeared into tunnels underground before resurfacing again 100 feet later. Pleased at having found the entrance to Phalen at last, we happily jumped right into the trench and started ambling off.

We were a little confused for a few minutes: why was the flow of water going away the Mississippi? Where we were standing, the water seemed to flow NW while the river was clearly SE of us. We went with our guts, disregarded logic and trudged downstream and underground into a large, rectangular drain.

We quickly realized that we made a mistake by not going out to buy some knee-high boots before this expedition, we were going through not only cold water, but through some deep mud. Goxkok, in front, has some tall rubber boots from canoeing trips in the past, and so he tested the mud for deep spots and the folks without proper foot protection followed closely. The drain quickly doubled in size as a second tunnel with rushing water joined ours and we found ourselves standing in a behemoth. This drain must have been more then 16 feet across and 10 feet tall with strange, ripple cieling made with pretty red bricks. The base of the drain also was pretty, with brickwork covering the floor.

At the first intersection of the BigAssTunnel and the LoudAssTunnel, we took a hard left and abled up the LAT towards what looked like a spout, pouring water into the drain at a quick pace. As we got closer, however, the water kept getting deeper and deeper, and without boots, none of us wanted to continue getting soaked. We backtracked to try our luck with the BigAssTunnel instead.

The BAT was certainly not boring like other drains we had been in, there was lots to look at. The walls were all colored orange and black, with srings leaking into the drain from all sides. Dropshafts peppered the walls and very very old stepirons led up to manhole covers just a few feet above the top of the drain.

There were also tons of smaller pipes pouring water into the drain, some of which were very corroded with bright colors and nasty looking deposits, like this one

We also came across a strange protrusion in the drain floor that ended up being part of the brickwork being pushed upwards into the drain by some unknown force. This sort of gives you the idea of what the floor of the drain looks like...pretty bricks.

We ended up at another junction in the drain where tall cement pillars separated the drain we were in from one that seemed to run parallel to Phalen for as far as we could see. We poked around for a bit at the junction, then decided that this would be a good place to head back in order to return with proper footgear.

We trudged back to the Troutbrook / Phalen divider (at least, thats what we think it is) and slipped and slid through the mud back to the open trench area and quick hopped out ninja-style back onto the sidewalk and declared this night an amazing sucess. Here are the mudsoaked heros, emerging from the mucky depths to fight on another day.

We may not have explored much of the drain, but we found the drain, got into it and discovered a need for more equipment....that compared to the endless stumbling around in the dark we've been doing recently made this expedition a success. We look forward to going back with better gear and more stories! We're hoping to make Phalen a whole day thing, so a long expedition is just around the corner.

- Goxkok

Phalen Scouting

2008-07-16T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hey folks

This summer has been fucking nuts, and exploring has gotten a bit shafted because of the insanity this summer has shown.

Earlier in the summer, Jacques and I planned to find the Phalen drain outfall and head into the massive Phalen complex. We trucked out to where the creek hits the Mississippi and walked for a good long bit. We came across a few outfalls, including a very large one that should be the Phalen system. However, similar to the drain in Minneapolis that foiled our exploring plans, this drain would require a boat or something to get into, which we neglected to pack.

We scouted around the area where this huge drain emptied into the Mississippi, coming up with some huge manhole covers. We spied through the holes of the manhole and found a huge tunnel underground, but we did not have the adequate tools to open this fucker, and we were pretty damn close to a large highway...and it was only about 9 or 10 at night.

We brought some hot tea in a thermos Jacques had, so we sat down after our walk and sipped off of hot tea on a chilly night on a nearby bench, contemplating the drain and other possible entrances. Is it a manhole a few blocks away? An outfall in a park nearby? A large grate like Minnehaha?

More research must be done on this drain before we are to enter it. Yet another scouting mission turns up dry.

•••

We always forget that the biggest part of exploring is the scouting. When people think of "exploring", its always the glorified wandering around in tunnels, getting grimy, seeing amazing shit and telling some great stories. What people (including myself) constantly forget is that most of exploring (at least for us) is poking around in the woods, or the river, or endless reasearch online, or maps or just talking to other trusted explorers.

But hey, that shit is fun too, and makes the drains that much more enjoyable.

Spring 2008

2008-03-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

Hey folks

All of the snow is almost melted and we are anxious to get back on track with exploring. The Winter hiatus that began with the epic toe freezing in Lucky 13/St. Anthony Drain deterred us from most underground exploring, but we are back on track and prepared for some grand adventures! MORE EXPLORING!

A visit to the store will provide us with waders so that our feet never get wet again and therefore making our exploring balls grow six sizes! Upcoming updates will include:

•Waterfall Drain
•Phalen/Trout Brook
• ToT
• Tailraces
• Loads of other cool abandoned shit.

Ill never forget extra batteries again <3

-Goxkok

National Geographic Caves

2008-02-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

Hey folks

Due to lack of an update for a while Ill throw up a quick recap of a short exploring adventure from a few days back....

I got a call from Jasper asking me if I was free that night to go explorin with Ebenezer. Nothing much was going on that night, so I ran outside and got picked up by Ebenezer in his car with Jasper along in the passenger's seat.

The plan: some interesting sandstone caves on the West Side of the river. We were hoping to explore some extensive caves, though after much mucking around suspiciously along the bluff, we settled for exploring the National Geographic Caves. Jasper led the way and we snuck around an abandoned building and through a small hole into the cave.

Fucking sandy! Sand piles everywhere and getting all over my shoes. It was like being on a beach, minus the heat. And the Sun. We set off into the cave, passing by some cool carved staircases that wound up into the bluffs. I really wanted a photo, but my camera batteries were being a little selective in what they wanted to photograph (blah blah blah I know, bring spares).

Here, Jasper shines a 4D LED Maglite down one of the many long sand passages

The tunnels were maybe ten feet high and wound all through the bluffs. Lots of bats hung hibernating on the walls and we walked carfully around them, carful not to wake the poor bastards up. We came across a table with loads of beer bottles and empty Karkov Vodka handles (classy!) and a threating note to some kids who apparently had been trashing the place.

The most interesting part of the cave system involved a awkward climb up a huge sandy pile. At the top was a huuuge underground room with high arching cielings made of a different kind of rock (limestone mebbe? I dont know my rocks) Tea candles littered the scene and a freaky plastic halloween pumpkin sat on top of the underground hill. I fucking wish I could have gotten a photo of this place, but the camera seriously was on Ambien or something. Ill definetly come back here with more tea lights and ighters galore to take waaay better photos because this subterranean room is really sweet.

Further exploration revealed a lot of storage for what seemed like random junk, mostly scaffolding and other building equipment. We poked around a bit more, and headed back as we all had class tomorrow and it as getting past midnight.

A panic attack was had by all when Ebenezer couldnt find his keys, then we all calmed down 5 minutes later when we got back to the car and they were sitting on his hood!

Mouser Week IX Awards Ceremony

2008-02-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

Hey folks!

The kickoff to Mouser Week IX was a great opportunity to meet a lot of people from around the Metro Area. We had a great time getting to know so many people from the community and have a chance to talk to some really interesting folks.

We headed out from St. Paul and took 3 different busses to get to the Perkins, the 84, the 16 and the 2. We had no idea what to expect when we got there, so we sort of wandered in awkwardly and were warmly greeted by everyone at the table. Dinner was great: the combonation of the food, conversation and people was perfect. We sat mainly with Katwoman, Gatsby, Ben Again and Jasper, though many others stopped by to chat, get our names and share stories.

Here's a shot of the gang by Ben Again:

After dinner, Franklin, Jacques and I carpooled over to West K with Ben Again and Spaz. We slid awkwardly down the embankment and headed up the drain to the final helix, where we waited for the rest of the group. Spaz and Ben had other plans for the night, so they headed out and we waited with our lights turned off at the foot of the helix.

We sat in the dark, chating as we watched the lights bobbing slowly towards us in the distance: two LEDs, one red light and occasionally Freak's gigantic spotlight lit up the tunnel. Watching these lights coming down the drain was one of the weirdest sights we have ever seen: the lights bobbed mysteriously and hypnotically as we stared them down.

Here are Goxkok, Jacques and Franklin Delano Nothing , after wainting a good 15 mins for people to get to the meeting place.

Then someone who clambered up the slippery incline of slime found a wandering cat in the upper drain levels!! He brought it back down to our level and we found it didnt have an eye and was limping. Someone lent their bag to Freak and he and DC hauled it out of the drain later and brought it to a hospital.

The awards started after Freak lit a few bag lanterns and tea lights and the upper part of the Helix was packed with explorers. Stories were shared, amazing homemade awards were handed out to the winners and still more introductions were being made. So many people to meet!

Jacques, Franklin Delano Nothing and I needed to bus back to Jacques house, so we ducked out right after the awards and trudged with Robin and his fiancee back to the outfall, clambering around and slipping on the huge ice-pwn-wall near the entrance.

We made it back safe to Jacques and passed out after a hot bowl of soup.

Hopefully, this was just the first of a few explorations this week. Check back soon!

-Goxkok

This Upcoming Week

2008-01-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

Hey folks!

Mouser Week IX is upon us this weekend, so Franklin, Jacques, Goxkok, Jasper and Hollers will be headed out en masse to Perkins on Sat. to meet up with the rest of the TC gang and watch the awards ceremony and hopefully participate a few times during the coming week of explorations around the Twin Cities.

A solid week of exploration awaits! Stay tuned for harrowing tales and amazing sights!

-GoxKok

ADM Grain Elevators

2008-01-22T16:43:00.000-08:00

Hey people. The exploring crew is back and dressed warmly for this brutal Minnesota weather. It was a bit warmer the other day (relative to the chilly past few days) so we decided to get our asses into gear and get out and explore. The freezing cold and our epic toe-freezing of the Lucky 13 / Saint Anthony drain sort of deterred us from water involved explorations.

But, the call of the grain towers proved to be too strong. Even though it was balls cold outside, we go ahold of Franklin and picked his sorry ass up at his house. Adventures ensued:

Jacques and I drive over to the SuperAmerica to fill up his struggling gas tank.

We slam our doors shut to fill up gas and buy rockstar, and realize shortly after that WE FUCKING LOCKED JACQUES KEYS IN HIS CAR! Dammit! We shamefully called up the only other person with a key (his mommy) and she drove over, pissed, and opened the car for us. We got in, and drove off to the West Side to pick up our buddy.

Franklin Delano Nothing was waiting ever patiently for us, and wasted no time in hopping right in. We motored off to Minneapolis along University Avenue and spent at least 10 mins looking for a parking spot suitable for Jacques behemoth of a car.

Parking finished, we looked in front of us at the gigantic building (this picture borrowed from e is for ericka on flickr)
We evaded a simon delivers truck and crawled in a small hole and entered a smelly, dark and grain-encrusted building. We were in! Explored the majority of the first floor, which ended up being mostly control rooms, electricity, lockers and bathrooms. Some cool pictures ensued:

Here Jacques poses with some rusted out and decrepit machinery shit. We guessed it was some electrical switch station, and found one station identical to this one for every silo. Some more poking around led to the discovery of some gigantic electrical stations. Switchbox upon switchbox spanned all the way down this hallway.

We followed the hallway to a section of old offices and pawed a bit through the empty desks and found a VHS Tape and nabbed it, thinking it might be something cool or at least, weird. Our exploration of the first floor ended at the end of the long hallway which ended at a set of stairs that led into the basement with a prominant sign warning us of some crazy gasses that probably dont exist, but still... we didnt want to fuck with crazy gases. Here, Jacques poses with another switchbox near the ladders.

We headed up a narrow staircase that climbed all the way up to the top of the grain towers, at least a dozen flights in a tiny shaft with sporadic windows. It was the upper levels of the towers that were really interesting, and sadly, this is where my camera batteries finally gave out against the brutal cold... so you cant see the pictures.

The upper level included some sketchy stairs, many ways onto the roof (not dark enough to go out yet) and some cool spaceship-like hallways that led to other rooms on the roof. The kicker though was a long passage that spanned the whole upper-floor that gave access to the top of each silo.. we walked along this area from one end of the elevator to the other, tripping balls as we peered over into the silos, hundreds of feet down to their cement bottoms. We definetly tossed a plastic bottle over the edge, and it took at least 8 or 9 seconds to get to the bottom.

There was no way back down on the other side, so we headed back to the sketchy stairway down after poking our heads outside on the roof: turned out to be way too cold in the wind so we'll come back another day to get photos of D-Town mpls. Here's one last shot of the upper hallway as we head back with the light boosted a bit:

We exited the way we came, out the little hole and into the night to go grab McFuckingDonalds on the West Side before watching that VHS we got:

Turned out to be an insurance claim tape: water had spilled onto the train tracks, effectivy freezing the train cars into place. ADM i guess spent thousands trying to free the railcars and used this tape to document their spending. The footage was just a worker with shitty camera angles filming workers trying to free the train from the ice with some awkward commentary. Maybe we'll have a screening of this blockbuster film someday: keep checking back ;)

-GoXkok, Jacques and Frankling Delano Nothing

Finals

2007-12-16T09:29:00.001-08:00

No, we haven't died, it just got really cold all of a sudden and snowed a lot. We're headed out exploring soon, finals are just kicking our asses!

On the list to do during winter break:
- Grain Towers
- Trout Brook and or Phaelen

Peace -Gox

Dan's Drain / Davern Drain

2007-11-18T13:47:00.001-08:00

Finally, Dan's Drain! After 3 different trips to find that damn oufall, we finally went and explored all of that elusive drain. The entrance was just below my feet the whole time...

I called a fellow explorer named Jasper last night and, thankfully, she was up for going draining. I biked to her house and we got all of our stuff together for an adventure underground. We left her place and biked to a spot near the outfall where we locked our bikes up to a nearby tree. We then went on a bit of hike through the woods and found ourselves at the outfall near the river. We slipped into the drain with no difficulty and found ourselves a room underground with two different passages.:

One was an RCP headed off to the left, while the other was a low, rectangular tunnel going to the right. We elected to go down the RCP, as we were equipped with tall, rubber boots and we were anxious to try them out. We sloshed upstream and It got a lot shallower until the tunnel became a crazy triangular shape! The tunnel actually looked like a triangle and continued on this way for as long as we could see.

We hiked a ways up the drain and began to hear the sound of falling water from a long distance. The sound got louder and louder an louder until we emerged in a HUGE ROOM underground shaped sort of like the tunnel from which we had just come. A huge dropshaft poured water from a shallow draining shaft way above us and a second, dry dropshaft led to a grate on the surface. I knew my camera had very little battery, I whipped it out quick to take a picture:

This doesnt really give you the scale of this place....its really big. My batteries died right after this however, so I dont have any more pictures of Dan's drain, even though it got even more interesting as we went on.

The atrium turned out to be a dead end, so Jasper and I turned back to go to the other passage. We made it back to the outfall in no time, and went into the crouching, rectangular tunnel. After a few hundred feet, it opened up into an older, coffin shaped passage that headed straight into the city. Another triangular drain went off to our left, but we continued down the older shaft and vowed to return to this passage.

A few dropshafts later and a lot of weird graffiti (Including "BOMB SADDAM 1993) we turned down a walking height side tunnel that, according to the graffiti, goes under Norfolk Ave. The tunnel was of a different make than the previous one: it had the look of an old sewer with the depressed brick channel in the middle and cement walls to walk on on the side. The cieling was carved from the naked sandstone and wasnt round but triangular and cut sloppily. The tunnel was pocked with even smaller side tunnels leading to dropshafts that had amazing mineral and cave-like formations.

The tunnel went far and stopped abruptly at a dropshaft and catchbasin filled with really really clear water that Jasper almost walked right into. Above us was a ridiculously long dropshaft going up to the surface, and another dropshaft before that one had something even more interesting in it.

We turned back, and walked the long walk back to the main drain. We explored a few of these long offshoots, one, which was labeled as "West Seventh" went on for a ridiculously long time towards downtown and was coated with clay and a lot of really weird minerals. A few really cool dropshafts dotted the tunnel, and it dead ended after a long long trek. We turned around and headed back.

The main drain continued on for a while, but got shorter and shorter as the drop shafts grew more numerous. We ended at a dead end: time to head back to that one tunnel we havnt checked out yet.

That tunnel turned out to resemble the other triangular tunnel from the original branch at the outfall. We followed it down, and came across a raccoon a the bottom of a dropshaft a few feet away from us that scared the crap out of me and made Jasper shriek loudly. However, a closer (but not too close) inspection revealed that the raccoon had apparently fallen down the shaft and broken a leg, as it lay there and looked at us with pitying eyes with its leg folded awkwardly underneath its fat body.

We continued down the shaft and came to an identical atrium as the one pictured above, so we turned back and headed back to our bikes, popping out of a manhole near the outfall.

Saint Anthony Park Drain / Lucky 13

2007-11-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

I got out of class yesterday and hopped the next bus headed north to Jaques' house, loaded down with exploring equipment galore, along with some extra pairs of socks. There, I met up with Franklin Delano Nothing of Island Station Drain fame and Jaques himself. Jaques mentioned that he needed a new Bible for a class he was taking, so we drove over to Barnes and Noble to get it. We stopped at Target on the way to look for water shoes, but I guess they dont sell them in November or something.

So we then went off to the big ol' river to go head into big ol' Lucky 13. We parked close by in the residential neighborhood and went on down to the outfall. Oddly enough, the city had decorated the outfall with park benches and ornate fences (why?). A quick hop over a 3 foot fence (that was padlocked) led us to a ladder that descended into the river. Goxkok climbed down and poked the water to test the depth. Turned out it was only about 2 feet deep! We all jumped into the River and splashed carfully into the outfall of the drain.

We headed into the behemoth and took the left fork when it split off into three parts. We were greeted by a friendly sandbar and lots and lots of fish that darted off when they saw us approaching. We quickly made it into the main drain tunnel, which was a huge 13 foot RCP. Our hoped of being relativly dry were shot when we noticed the torrent of water flowing towards us. Here, Franklin looks back lovingly at the outfall and dry land.

Onward! We trudged onwards up the huge pipe and through the river having a great time. It was pretty slow going, as the water pressed against our feet as we pushed forward. Our waves created cool whirlpools that sucked at our feet and we all proceeded to freak out as Goxkok kicked what seemed to be a submerged rock but turned out to be a HUGE FUCKING FISH that, trapped, did all that it could: swim through our legs brushing up against our shins!!!!! Fuck, that shit was surprising!

We continued to laugh about the fish as we trudged onwards. Here, Frankin and Jaques smile cheerfully as we all follow the drain far under the city.

We came across a really neat side passage that was lined with brick and actually very pretty. We followed it a ways, noting the various holes in the wall that led to older draining pipes. Note the slippery orange slime in the middle: that shit was gross.

We walked maybe 5 minutes down this side passage and came across this weird dropshaft at the end. There was this strange set of cement moats that seperated the dropshaft from the side passage that we occupied. Across the first long moat (maybe 4.5, 5 feet?) there was a cement platform that had a side passage going out of it. Jaques had major balls and decided to jump the moat to see what was down the passage. Here he is making it successfully to the other side:

Jaques peered down the hallway and noted a strong sanitary smell wafting from the entrance. He declined to climb the short staircase and instead examined the dropshaft that the end of the hall. He then lept back to where Franklin and GoxKok were waiting, but slipped in the orange shit in the process. Check out that goop stain!

Awesome. We headed back to the main shaft and headed onwards through the 13' RCP. Shortly after, we made it to a waterfall thing that we had to climb up. Franklin almost wussed out, but succumbed to peer pressure and ended up getting drenched. At last, we made it to the Lucky 13 Temple!

We walked under the temple, noting that, unlike the Drowned Cat Temple, the grate underneath had been totally plugged by minerals of some kind. Also, there was only one "ladder", or what used to be a ladder. Now its just a laddershaped lump of minerals that was difficult to climb. Here, Jaques ascends the ladder up to the upper level where (if this temple was the same style of the ToTDC) we knew the iron catchbasin would be sitting.

Yep! The huge iron impact cup rested right in the middle of the upper platform . I climbed the ladder a bit to get a good picture of my exploring mates next to the cup. Oddly, even though the torrent of water was much higher than the other Temple, we werent getting nearly as soaked.

The ladder that we knew went up to the surface was extremely sketchy: parts of the grate were missing so one would have to switch from ladder to ladder in order to ascend the passage. We feared death and did not attempt it! Seriously, look at this:

Instead we posed cheesily for a three person photo : Look at those handsome dudes!

Defeated yet very satisfied, we made our way back to the outfall and dry land. Here, Goxkok slides awkwardly down the mini waterfall that led from the Temple to the main drain. Miraculously, no one fell into the rushing torrent.

Walking back proved to be much easier than going against the flow of the water. We made it to the side passages in no time at all. We rounded a turn in th e tube and saw the dimly lit outfall way in front of us! Jaques' car, warm feet, extra socks and McDonalds were close by! We trudged quickly forward and headed out the outfall and into the Mississippi
Here, Franklin climbs the ladder up to the land, dripping wet and freezing cold.

A quick walk to the car proved to be tough in our cold shoes and a foot warming session involving the heaters was called for. After that, a drive to Jaques to get warm clothes and money and McDonalds, as per tradition! They fucked up our order, so we got extra apple pies too! Fuck yeah!

-GoxKok

While jumping the gap, my mind was not on the pain of a fall, but on the liquid STD pit before me. It was not an appealing thought to be soaked head to foot in nast, and then be turned into a nastcicle once I went outside. Jokes about the Mississippi river and Admiral Ackbar followed these thoughts. Also, a word of warning: wear rubber boots if you do this sorta thing, its gets goddamn cold once you get back to the surface.

-Jacques

East Kittsondale Helix

2007-11-06T22:14:00.001-08:00

Woot! We went on an impromptu exploration mission today. Myself and a friend named Holler were going to set out and explore the 28th street drain in Minneapolis ourselves, but at the last minute Jaques called us and joined up! He met us and we rolled by means of his car to the outfall in Minneapolis.

We got to the drain, only to find the water level so high that entry was impossible except by a canoe or raft of some sort.... which we did not have. Sadly we had to turn back and clamber up the sandy cliffs back to his car. PWNMOUNTAIN!

Plan B: East Kittsondale Drain

We drove down to where we knew the outfall was (thanks city of Saint Paul!) and did a fair amount of stumbling down steep hills and searching around in the dark before we came across a small drain entrance: We climbed in and explored what turned out to be an abandoned sewer almost exactly like the Drake St. Drain from a few nights ago, complete with the side tunnels that led to nowhere and the brick/sandstone architecture. Cool, but dead end.

We climbed back out and quickly found the truly massive outfall for the East Kittsondale staring us right in the face: this thing was huge! And very intimidating! We were above it on some cliffs, and needed to get down to it which looked difficult. Some kind explorers had left a useful rope on the east side of the outfall and we used it and the footholds in the sandstone to caaaareefuly lower ourselves into the outfall. One misstep and it meant a tumble into the freezing cold Mississippi for us!

At last, the outfall! The pillars were really cool, and the floor was really slippery. We grabbed onto a kind vine to prevent a dip in the river. Here Holler poses victoriously in the outfall among the cool pillars:

We hope that we arent going to get as wet as the West Helix forced us to get, but it seems as though the water level is much lower than it was when we went to the Triple Helix System. The water also had a weird orange tint to it, which was pretty and sort of weird. Here we prepare to venture into the vast drain that awaits us.

This drain system has a ton of really interesting little groundwater springs that have broken in through the walls. These springs leave intricate and beautiful little designs with all sorts of colors on the walls and floor, from orange spiderwebed designs to floes of bone-white calcium. Also, interesting architecture was noted: here Jaques poses with a bricked off old brickwork doorway.
Cool. We marched on down the tunnel, knowing we had a long march ahead of us. I paused to take a long exposure shot of the drain as Holler and Jaques walked down it (I reccomend going to http://www.flickr.com/photos/goxkok/ for a MUCH better size): note the different lights. One is a Xenon bulb and the other is an LED Maglite. Which one could be which? Hmmm...
We took a side passage and walked up a short set of steep stairs that led to a bricked off passage, almost certainly a seperation between the two sewer systems. Here is a shot of Jaques and Holler looking up at me from the base of the stairs. They look so happy!

Woah! What happened?! The helix appeared out of nowhere! We expected a much longer walk before we got to the spiral staricase, but here it is! This thing is huge, even larger than the massive spiral stairs in its West sister. It lacked that side trough though, so water was pouring down the whole staircase which made the climbing very wet.

This is another long exposure of Jaques and Holler climbing up the staircase. The blob of light in the corner is Jaques leaping over me to get to the stairs after he tied his show, its not the sun. Not the crazy orange color of the stairway to the right.

Climbing the helix, an almost endless ever turning ascent into the unknown. Jaques looks like an old fat woman in this photo if you ask me...

Here we are, at the top of the long climb up the spiral stairs with that crazy eroding set of stairs that look realy cool but are really slippery. We have no idea what lies ahead of us as we scamper along the tunnel. Unlike the other helix which gives way to a bunch of smaller drains up in the shallow levels, this drain was just as big as it was a hundred feet below.

Here is the first picture of GoxKok, taken as he tests a manhole in a room for liftability. It fails the lifting test and he descends. Damn! Check that ass out!

5H|200Mz!

Here are the buddies! We are in a small room underground that is a welcome change to the tunnels weve been walking through for a while. Friends always, even underground, Jaques and GoxKok pose for a snapshot. FRIENDS 4EVAR!

The intrepid exporers continue on, even though the tunnel has turned into an RCP. The sides have disappeared and the floor of the drain is now just water. The intrepid explorers are not daunted however, and they trudge forward in their non-booted feet. They proceed to get really wet, much to their dissatisfaction, but the smiles on their cute little faces remain!

We trudged on and on and on through the boring RCP getting wetter and wetter. Dams of trash would block up water and create huge deep sections that came up past our shins and really made us sad. But what is this up ahead? Woah! A fucked up stairway underground! Its painted like a tiger even! Where should we go? Probably up!

Here is another one of those failed long exposure shots, this one of Jaques and Holler ascending the tiger stairway. I kind of like how it turned out. Again, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/goxkok/ for a MUCh better looking size, you can see way more.

The RCP continued on seeminly forever and turned into a bunch of smaller tunnels: some assrape tunnels, some really smelly tunnels, some tunnels that deadended and others that were too skinny for us to slip into. We hoped and hoped for a manhole to be safe, but all manholes had cars rumbling over them at high speeds (we figured that we were running directly a busy road of some sort) SADNESS!

We ended up having to turn back and head to the helix and downward. It really sucks having to backtrack, but the dread drain fever had us in its grips and totally screwed us over. We faced a long ass walk to the outfall, including a long trudge through cold leg deep water. Sweet!

We made it back to the outfall in good time, thoroughly soaked and disheveled. We clambered back up the sandstone cliffs (found a cavey thing) and back to Jaques' car. Time to take off our soaking shoes and to get some FUCKING JIMMY JOHNS!!!!! (Holler = vegetarian so no McDon)

We really really loved this mission, even though we got soaked and cold and had to walk the whole way back. The helix was amazing and so was the tiger-like stairs near the end of the tunnel along with all of the cool architecture and changing drain shape.

-GoXkok OUT!!

Davern/Dan's Drain Failure and Drake St. Drain

2007-11-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since the last update so I thought Id fill the masses in with what has been going on recently:

Either we are really bad at scouting or this drain is really hard to find because after THREE different scouting trips we still havnt found the outfall to Dan's Drain, AKA Davern Street Drain:

1. We go in the dark and spend 2.5 hours scouring the riverside near where we know the drain outfalls. After a long period of stumbling over tripwire vines, getting owned by thorns and burrmountain and getting soaked in the Mississippi we came up with nothing but a strange cement fence wall thing that clearly wasnt a drain and a marina that was nowhere near where we wanted to be and where scared old ladies yelled at us to go away. Failure!

2. This time we go again at night and explore the hills to the west of where we were the other night and swiftly were kicked out by a roving security truck. Luckily, the guy didnt ask us why we were in the forest off the trail with flashlights covered in burrs. We later went on to explore the Drake St. Drain (next)

3. I went personally by bike to check this place out in the light, hoping to have more luck. The concrete wall thing turned out to be sme sort of drain thing: water was dripping inside of it and had two small outfalls to the river but clearly couldnt be acessed by humans. I followed where the tunnel went underground and found rusted manholes but nothing enterable. I went around the rest of the area, but couldnt find a damn thing and had to go back due to time. It was truly:

Well, the second night out we ended up going to the Drake St Drain instead, which was a nice change from being pwnd constantly to actual exploration. Sadly, my camera was locked in the room of a neighbor and so this trip isnt documented with pictures :( We went with Nebulon, who is a friend of Jaques' from the U. We clambered down some sketchy sandstone and made it down to the river to look for the outfall and bam! There it was right in front of us!

We slipped and slid our way through the clay to the main tunnel in the drain which is about high and only 4 feet wide throughout the drain. We hiked a ways back, with a strong wind in our faces. Multiple side tunnels went off to our right and became old 1800's abandoned sandstone sewers which we vowed to explore on the return trip back to the outfall. The min tunnel ended at a dropshft which had a concrete divider that went up maybe 100 feet to a manhole cover and a shallow drain level. We turned back and went down the first old sewer

The sewer had loads of bats (!) on the walls that were hanging, though they didnt seem to mind us (hibernating? It is Nov...) Many sandy side tunnels ran off to our rights and lefts , though they all ded ended at other pipes that were falling apart. We were surprised to come across a bid ol' stairway!! With huge steps!! That dead ended in a brick wall!! It smelled like a sewer on the other side, so we expect its part of the W. 7th sewer maze and the walled off portion was part of the effort to seperate the two systems.

On the way back to the outfall we explored the rest of the side tunnels but nothing interesting was to be found except lots of balls of all kinds (Tennis balls, whiffle balls, plasticy bouncy balls and even marbles) why balls I cannot say, maybe they get trapped easier.

We made it back to the outfall and scrambled up the cliff in the wee hours of the morning and headed back to Jack's abode to sleep peacefully and wonder where the fuck Dan's/Davern Drain is....

Kittsondale v 2.0

2007-10-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

We have always wanted to make it to the top of that damn helix that we missed on our first trip ... we had been thwarted by rain for the past two weeks so when it finally got perfect out, we drove on down to the outfall and headed in.

First thing we noticed ... the shit was fucking slippery! The continuous rain must have coated the sides of the drain with the slippery stuff so we kept sliding into the water, yelling "It's a trap!" ala Admiral Ackbar everytime we felt ourselves slipping toward the water. We finally gave up and took our shoes off and pressed forward in our socks (good idea)

We made it to the end of the tunnel and admired the varied artworks on the walls in the area:

Very nice. We proceeded to head up the famous stairway to the surface that has been climbed so many times. Too bad I forgot those candles, that would have been sweet.

I had to ask Jaques to stay very still for this picture. He was starting to get annoyed with mye and my camera at this point. But hey, the 10 second exposure turned out okay I thought:

We ended up making it to the top. We branched off to the left rather than climbing the wall of slippery rock sans rope aid. We came to this network of shallow tunnels leading to God knows where. This is the assrape tunnel, where you were forced to stick up your ass and run forward to make any ground. Goxkok poses with a sad, sad face and the uncomfortable position he must travel in.

We went through the a crawling tunnel in order to continue and found a styrofoam cup stuck in the cieling from when the tunnel was built (weird) and a marble among other oddities. The crawling got a little old after a while though and we were thoroughly soaked and dirty by the end of it.

The crawl tunnel opened up to more assrape-height tunnels which we followed for a while. They opened occasionally for junctions and manholes but all the ones we tried to lift were sealed shut! Fuck! The tunnel then split off and got too small so we had to fucking crawl and awkwardly walk all the way back.

We made it up the slippery-as-hell incline without the damn rope and started off down the shallow tunnels right under the streets. Car roared by overhead and occasioanlly buses would pass by. The floor was a nice change, it was pretty coloful and NOT SLIPPERY limestone slabs which made our lives very nice. The interior designers that did this deserve a thumbs up.

We followed the maze of shallow tunnels for a long time, checking out many many side tunnels and tons of sealed manholes. We came across a janky but serviceable rope ladder going up to another level so we climbed up and found ourselves in round tube of walking height. We found a storm grate leading to the street above, so I stuck my camera out and took a photo to see where the hell we were:

Okay, so we were under University Avenue near the First Tire. We had come a long fucking ways! We continued on, listening to the cars and people walking above us. Another crawl tunnel took us to a manhole that budged! We sat under it, waiting for the trucks and cars to go by then scraped the manhole over and clambered out, almost running into a guy on a bike who seemed a little surprised and muttered "Oh, shit" to himself and biked off. Jaques then climbed out too as a lone beat up pickup drove by, staring at us and doing a U turn (shit shit!) to drive by us again. Here is the intersection we popped out of:

We check the time (1:50!) And decided to head off to MacDonalds to feast on shitty but amazing food as per tradition. We walked all the way back to the river and hopped in Jaques' car and drove off into the midway for food!
Success!

As long as the weather holds out, we're hoping to do a bunch of draining soon. Check back for updates

- GoxKok

Recon Update

2007-10-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

1. Downtown proves to be a failure again. Everything seems to be locked up and sealed away. We found more of those curious rooms but they led nowhere.

2. We set out to explore a telephone tunnel in the Highland neighborhood, only to find that the manhole only led to little maintenance rooms underground. Shoot!

More research must be done.

Recon Missions

2007-10-17T22:34:00.001-07:00

Its been a while since the last update and I thought I'd clue people in to what is going on:

1. Jaques and i headed downtown STP searching for entrances we had heard of. The first was locked from underneath. We drove a bit more and walked a lot, but did not find much except a cool trapdoor that we could not open (we needed some sort of key thing).

2. We returned a few days later. All we found was a little room that seemed to be a weather recording station. Cool, though not what we were hoping for.

3. Much research on campus has led to the discovery of an entry point to the steam tunnels on my schools campus: however its in a populated area so Ill have to wait till 3 in the morning someday. Also, I met with another explorer on campus!

Cheers! More to come soon!

Minnehaha Drains

2007-10-04T13:30:00.000-07:00

After sitting in class for a few days during the week, I began to get a feeling of serious drain withdrawal. So I called up Jaques and lo! He too and a drain hankering. Sadly, Franklin Delano Nothing was otherwise busy so we designed to set out alone. I bussed over to his house and from there we suited up to go under the earth.

A bit of research off the city works website reveled the general location of a drain in Minnehaha park that we thought would be suitable. We filled up the tank (ouch!) and drove on over to Mpls. We parked the car and Jacques and Goxkok then proceeded to demonstrate their highly un-ninja like skills. Loudly cursing, snapping twigs, falling and scraping themselves on the the steep slope down to the river, we finally landed at the bottom of the slope. As they got up, dirtied and scratched, they noticed a staircase 10 yards away. Go figure.

By a magnificant stroke of luck, the lost and confused couple wandered a bit, then found a gaping drain outfall with a huge grate covering it. We managed to squeeze through the grate and enter the drain! Success!

We kept our lights off for a bit and almost fell into a large hole in the drain where the water flushed down a ramp for some reason. We then decided to turn on the lights for good and walked maybe 50 feet through a shallow puddle (with a handrail!)

Ahead of us was an amazing subterranean water slide, complete with a stairway for explorers! Water rushed down the ramp and gurgled into the hole behind us and we looked on at this strange sight:
We climbed the stairs and emerged into a HUGE cavern of a drain with ceilings arching high above us (maybe 18 feet?). We had never seen anything like this before: the picture below just doesnt do it justice.

As we walked up the drain, I found a toad on the floor and scooped it up without Jaques seeing. I then called him over and told him to take what was in my hand. He wasnt expecting a toad and flipped out, his yelp bouncing down the drain and echoing over and over. Owned!

Goxkok 1, Jaques 0. Here is GoxKok with the poor toad, which we named RUH the First

At this point, the drain became a lot smaller after a large turnoff (we explore that on the way back) and we start to cry inside as the slippery sides of the drain sloped upwards so they were nearly impossible to walk on. Here Jaques gives the camera a pitiful look.

As we neared the sounds of falling water, the tunnel became hot 'n steamy due to sexual tension between Jaques and GoxKok. This photo below does not quite portray the sexiness that was felt (thought he vandalism kind of took away from the tender moment)

Defeat! The drain ended in a huge catchbasin with water drifting down from who knows where. We spied up the long vertical shaft and spied a continuation of our tunnel much farther up, sort of like the Island Station Drain. We couldnt continue without ropes or ladders and other unwieldly equipment.

On the long hike back, Goxkok pauses to pose. He is riding a big metal support we ecountered, holding something up on the cieling. Please refrain from sexual jokes or commenting on how Gox is "compensating" for something.

Goxkok captured this cool shot on his shitty Canon Powershot with a 10 second -long exposure. He likes it because you can see where Jaques walked along and shone his light on the walls as the shutter was open....

This is the opening to an unknown side drain the we wanted to make known... so we walked down it on our way out.

The cieling got lot smaller and started to shrink down as we got further along. It dissapointingly ended at a catchbasin pouring water from high up. Lame. Here is a shot of Gox that shows the cieling and size of the drain.

Jaques poses elegantly at the edge of the waterslide, pondering what fun it would be to go down it assfirst ...
Here is one last shot of this cool slide as Gox descends it angelically.

We hiked the rest of the way to the entrance through the long puddle and squeezed through the little hole in the grate and stumbled out into the night and Minnehaha park ... with another drain completed!

We found our way back to Jaques' car and prompty did what all St. Paul kids do when they dirve home from Minneapolis in the dark through unknown neighborhoods ...

We got lost.

And drove around and finally got back onto a street we recognized and followed it across the river. Relief!

Until next expedition! -GOXKOK

The Principle of The Thing

2007-09-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

There is an odd dynamic when it comes to historical buildings and places. If they are relatively recent, they are not sacred. They can be bastardized for tourism, “restored” to something they never were, converted into an artificial playground for self appointed intellectuals, converted into condos, or simply demolished.

Once they are old enough, then they suddenly become a sacred part of our past, and are not touched, except to keep them from falling down entirely. Nevertheless, with many of these old structures, it would be considered blasphemy to clean them out entirely and replace their decaying parts.

In any case, the preservation of such a place is for the purpose of remembering history. History tends to be places where bloodbaths occurred or where people prayed, or so one would think from just visiting “historical” sights. And yet, all around us, our history is slowly fading away; our forts and temples and battlefields are well preserved, but what of the real past?

The real past is almost dead in memory and is dying in its physical reality. The real past is the great infrastructure that was once the lifeblood of these cities. Outdated, fallen out of use, the drains, tunnels, plants, factories, and everything that allowed a city to exist in this place has since been abandoned, in our memory as much as they have been physically.

Those places, rusting, rotting, crumbling, are much more our history than any site filled with modern material and deemed “restored.” Like decaying Greek temples or crumbling European castles, they are much more real to their past because they have been untouched since their past. To travel to such a place, to see the machinery and brickwork, is to see the past as it was, simply a little bit aged.

And this, to me, is what urban exploration is. It’s not about busting into businesses and bragging about trespassing. It’s about living a time that is rapidly disappearing, sinking under a new city. The undoctored past is a rare thing to have the privilege to experience, especially because this is not the past of kings or generals or millionaire mansions. This is the past of sewer and drain workers, factory workers, builders, tunnelers – ordinary people who built the labyrinthine hive of humans, that maze of rooms and halls above ground and under that we know as – a city.

- Jacques

"Temple Of The Drowned Cat" Drain

2007-09-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

The storm sewer drain that the Action Squad has dubbed the "Temple of the Drowned Cat" drain is pretty cool too, but we had some weird adventures even before we got in there. The only parking spot near the drain is about a fifteen minute walk away from the entrance, and it happens to be the home of some pretty shady characters at night. As we pulled into the parking lot, another car pulled in behind us, parked, and the driver proceeded to sit in his car with his lights off. SKETCHY, right? But what can you do. As we were walking towards the drain on the bike/walking path that follows the road, we heard some sirens coming towards us, which, since we weren't near.. y'know, fuckin anything, was slightly unsettling. When it got close enough, we realised that the siren was just a fire truck, but as it passed us, it slowed down and then stopped, shined it's light on us (to which we gave it a 'wtf, mate?' look) and then continued. A couple of minutes later, an ambulance drove down the same way as the fire truck and pulled over when it saw us. The guy inside leaned his head out the window and asks us, get this, asks us "You guys seen a fire down here?" More befuddlement all around, but to top it all off, when the ambulance pulled away, it decided it couldn't be bothered to get back on the road and just drove down the bike path!! It was awesome. We kept walking and pretty soon the fire truck and ambulance drove past us again. (The ambulance guy waved at us. It was cool.) It must have been a prank call, but it was pretty fuckin weird.

We eventually got down near the drain and sat on a log on the bank of the river while we waited for some boats to pass so we could climb in. While we were waiting, a little rafty boaty type thing with a blinking blue light on top putted past us. It was a frickin police boat! Luckily, they didn't stop, and we had some good answers planned out even if they did. After about five minutes, they came back and, holy shit, docked their boat at the dock RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRAIN! It was crazy. Goxkok snuck up to check if the coast was clear, and when it was, we all ran up and into the drain, right under the coppers' noses. It was rock'n'roll as shit.

Inside, the sewer was refreshingly large, and conveniently didn't smell like total fucking ass (like the helix drain did.) You might even call it nice. We walked a super long way (passing an open manhole cover that we're pretty sure lead to the heavily populated area they have right near the drain. It was a little scary, because it wasn't that late at night, and I think there was some shindig or something going on there)

We noticed a second temple type thing on a small offshoot from the main drain. It's a lot smaller, but it has some ladder action too. We didn't go up, though, since the ladders were covered in garbage and leaves from the last time it rained (or the last few times).

We eventually found the "temple." It's this big um.. catch basin? I think is the term. I didn't really pay attention to how it worked, but the gist of it is that water falls a really long way and it's this big weird metal thing. There's some ladders on the sides so you can climb up and get on top of it, but it constantly dumps water on you. Luckily, Gox thought it would be funny to bring an umbrella in his bag and take a picture of us with it underground. It worked pretty well, but it wasn't that big, so Jacques said fuck it and braved it alone.

Needless to say, we got ridiculously soaked by the water that seemed to fall for hundreds and hundreds of feet into this strange cistern thing

Here is a shot of the huge cistern looking down from the ladder. The water droplets catch the light from the flash in a weird way, so its sort of hard to make out.

From on top of the temple, you can climb up even more ladders (there had to be a couple hundred feet of ladder) and eventually you get to a manhole cover. I'm not really sure where exactly that manhole cover is, but it's somewhere near-ish my house, and Gox looked out (bad idea) and said he saw some shoes thrown over a telephone wire, so I'm thinkin I'm just gonna have to search around for an easier way in there. It might come in handy for avoiding cops... or those creepers down by the river.

Here, we turned back after a farwell look at the Temple and started our long trek back to the outfall to re-sneak around the cop boats

That was enough exploring for one day, so, feelin' rock and roll, we drove to Mac and Don's for some shitty delicious cheap food, and called it a night.

-Franklin Delano Nothing OUT!
(a)//(e)

Island Station Power Plant

2007-09-23T11:31:00.000-07:00

The Island Station Power Plant has been abandoned for like... fuckin forever. It's this big eerie behemoth down by the river that you can pretty much always see lurking in the woods. They were gonna turn it into condos a while ago, but I think that plan fell through, so I don't know what the deal is now. Probably just gonna get demolished

It's frequented pretty often by taggers, so the fuzz have been slowly but surely making it harder and harder to get in. We eventually found a pretty inconspicuous entrance that I really hope nobody wises up to, (SO DON'T FUCK IT UP FOR US, PUNKS!) and made our way inside.

We landed on the first floor, among some amazing sights. Crazy ladders going everywhere, furnaces and girders criss crossed in all directions

Our first stop was to the basement, which was especially sweet, since it was the only place in there that I hadn't already been. It was way more epic than I could even describe. There's all this creepy machinery and shit down there, and it was totally black except for our flashlights.

Jacques found this ancient watch, which was pretty rad, but there was also some seriously fucked up shit (ie, a used condom, some DISGUSTING porn, and a page ripped from a dirty novel that someone had highlighted the uh.. best parts of... as it were... sick.) There was also about fifty billion folding chairs. Creepy.

Here, Franklin poses among some crazy-ass rusted out machines in the basement. Anyone have anyclue as to what this shit does??

After that, we went and explored the upper floors which were filled with other sweet machinery and some amazing graffiti. This huge hook was suspended from the cieling of a truly massive room where there was some weird exercising machinery and piles of bricks.

More weird-asss piles of bricks stacked next to Franklin. To HIS right is the old elevator shaft going from the basement to the roof above us.

This catwalk spans the room where the huge hook is hanging

Jaques walks along a sturdy catwalk that runs parallel to the coal conveyor, that we think delivered and dumped the ground coal into the furnace.

We just kept climbing up and up more and more stairs

We eventually made our way to the roof. Holy shit, dudes, the roof. It's amazing. The view is gorgeous, and we were there right as the sun was setting.

Franklin poses with the water tower on top of the building. We dared not climb that ladder out of fear of being seen by someone on the ground and having the police called on our asses ... we generally stayed low as to keep out of sight.

Plus, the best graffiti is up there. And so is the smokestack, which doesn't look that big from far off, especially compared to the working power plant nearby, but when you're right up next to it, HOLY SHIT!

The sun was getting pretty low by the time we exited the roof and headed back down. We didn't want to have to use our flashlights inside when it was dark (good way to get caught, that is) so we made our way to the "exit" we had created for ourselves.

Here is Jaques, carefully clambering out of the plant, getting ready to slide his bag down this hooked pipe we found.

By this time, it was almost completely dark, so we stumbled through the woods till we got to Jaque's car, parked maybe 5 or six bocks up the road. Thoroughly punk rock, we proceeded to the Temple of the Drowned Cat drain for the night's next adventure.

Franklin

Island Station Drain

2007-09-23T11:26:00.001-07:00

Franklin Delano Nothing had discovered this opening a while back, but he wasnt quite prepared to explore it without the proper equipment. So, while we waited for the sun to go down for other, riskier, entrances we decided to go on a jaunt to this drain. We didnt know if it was an extensive maze of drains, or too small to navigate in or flooded or... a sewer or whatever but we decided to take our chances.

The Island Station storm sewer is apparently an original discovery to the urban exploration world. We haven't heard about anybody else getting in there or seen any pictures of it anywhere, and it didn't seem to have any signs of recent activity, save for the tag CANCER (we toyed with naming it CANCER drain) all over the concrete tube leading down to it.

Angler and I found it in the woods while we were looking for a new way into the Island Station power plant. It looks like it used to have a manhole cover on top, but somebody pulled the entire concrete bit off, so it's just sitting there open. I guess it's sort of hard to describe what I mean, so um... fuggedaboudit

We decended into the drain, down a solid flight of rungs. Note the drug related tags...we love drug related tags. We think they are funny.

Once down in the drain, we were pleased to find it walkable and mostly dry. We heard loud noises coming from down the drain, only to later realize it was cars passing above us on a very busy speedway.

Franklin Nothing poses with his 3D Maglite LED Black Flashlight, looking like a complete badass.

We followed the drain a ways towards the river ... it swiftly dead ended in a big pool where we declined to go. We turned back, disappointed and expecting got get similarly pwnt by the other direction from where we had originally descended.

Luckily we were completey wrong. As we followed the tunnel the other direction, it widened up and allowed us to walk upright. It snaked a long way back into the city, dotted with side tunnels that led to all sort of strange catchbasins and weird rooms.

What made it stand out, though, is that it's got some pretty sweet architecture. At the entrance, the sewer is made of brick, but as you go farther in, it alternates between that and concrete every hundred-ish feet. After a while, though, the brick/concrete duo gives way to just straight up carved sandstone. It appears that they just drilled straight into the rock and then covered the bottom with brick. I think you can see some of that shit in the pictures

This tunnel continued for a good distance before coming to another side tunnel.

Another weird thing is that every so often you can see big chunks of exposed cinderblocks, like maybe it borders the side of a building, but I can't imagine what building it would be.

Here, GoxKok (the photographer) explores this narrow side tunnel (it leads up a long ramp where a catchbasin makes its home)

The tunnel ended abruptly at a large room with a waterfall running along the far wall. Above us is another large passage, clearly a continuation of the tunnel that we had just walked down, but without the proper climbing tools, we couldnt ascend the twenty foot or so climb. Maybe in the future we'll come back better equipped to learn what this drain hides. Many other manholes showed themselves during our search, but alas, we were lacking in rope so we had no way of descending into the voids. We continued on our travels toward the abandoned power plant near the river.

Kittsondale Helix Drain

2007-09-23T11:14:00.001-07:00

A classic Twin City urban adventure is the Kittsondale Tripe Helix Drain. We found out easily where it is online and set out by car, then by foot to reach its outfall. We scrambled down the embankment to the HUGE opening in the hill.

We paused, however, to take a serene picture by the marvelous graffiti.

Look at this crazy dragon drain. Its maw is open and awaiting its meal. It seems to live up to its reputation as a popular spot... graffiti coats almost every open place here.

A waterfall cascades down from a hole in the ceiling getting us drenched and making the way super slippery. Of course, we all took a tumble into the shower ... the rounded walls make it impossible to walk around the slimy goop.
After a LONG ass hike back and back and back into the city, we came to our turnoff. We took a right and entered a much smaller tunnel leading to the first long, spiral staircase. The tunnel was just barely small enough thaty I had to crouch or skin my head. Here, Franklin and Jaques pose sexily for a shot. After climbing up the RIDICULOUSLY long mufucka, making sure not to succumb to the thin, stationary air in the stairwell, we found a ladder leading up to a little dome-y shaped room carpeted with graffiti. The cylindrical drain leads to a huge catchbasin full of skummy water.

Here, Jaques and GoxKok pose cheesily for a glamour shot...but underground.

Some plastic rungs to OUR left led us up to a smaller room that looked up on a manhole cover. We declined to climb the rusty ass rungs, valuing or life over knowing were we were.

We descended the long ass spiral staircase back down the way we came ... down down down down back into the bedrock of the city. Imagine Franklin's sexy ponytail bobbing up and down as we descend into the earth in this photo...

Lots of hiking, lots of wet shoes and lots of singing led us back to the outfall and to fresh air that tasted so good aftr encountering a sanitary outlet near the end of the tunnel.

And were out! Off to go get some shitty energy drinks to celebrate and drink while playing counterstrike and falling asleep on Jaques comfy floor, dreaming of our next adventure.

It was pretty sweet, even if the blog is making it sound boring. We only went up the first helix, but word on the strasse is that there's 2 more, and a sister drain that has fourth helix, so you might see some more pictures from there sometime in the not-so-distant future.