September 29, 2010

Tunnel Trip #1 - Cassell

So we first heard about the tunnels in the Fall/Winter of 2010, and after reading up on it for hours on the internet, we decided to go for it one night. We weren't exactly sure what to expect, we sort of just went for it. So, being the lazy kids we are, we wanted to go in at the closest entrance to us - Cassell Colliseum. So we walk down Washington Street, check to see if anyone's watching, and go back behind the large pine tree. We talked for a minute or two about the plan, checked out the grate, and were about to go down when a cop pulled into the nearby parking lot. We're pretty sure he was just doing some work there or radar-ing cars on the road, but he didn't leave until roughly 20 minutes later. We had just been sitting, hiding behind the tree while he was in the lot, and it was probably 12:30AM when we finally got the chance to go down. We got in, shut the gates, and our first tunnel experience began.
We couldn't find any decent flashlights, so we were relying on an app on my phone that uses the camera flash as a flashlight (this tunnel was unlit). We were immediately freaked out by how noisy the pipes in this section were, and since it was our first time down there we took our time looking around at all the graffiti and pipes along the tunnel. We got to the part where it connects to the tunnel that leads towards Miles, and we turned back here. It's sort of a tight turn at that point, and none of us felt like we were prepared to go down that part of the tunnel yet.
We head back the way we came, along the relatively short stretch of tunnel that we had been through. Getting out may have freaked us out worse than getting in. We sat for several minutes at the grate trying to listen for any people walking by, cars in the parking lot, etc. We finally made the move and got out of the tunnel, closed the grate, and casually walked out onto Washington Street. Our first tunneling experience had been short and rather uneventful, but successful nonetheless.