/urbex/ - Urban Exploration

archive of old thread, with some good info, is here:

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/469696/_b_%20-%20Drain%20Exploring.mht

Think I'd have to travel out to the suburbs to find any drains. What should I look for?

I did find some info on what's buried under the downtown area in my city. Pretty neat how all that exists underground. Probably all inaccessible however.

>>131
>what should I look for?

in case I didn't say it before, try searching for "(your county name here) watershed storm drainage master plan". For example, here is the one for Denver County:
http://www.denvergov.org/wastewatermanagement/WastewaterManagement/EngineeringandPermits/StormDrainageMasterPlan/tabid/442982/Default.aspx

if you can't find that:

1. find a river, creek, or other waterway. If driving/walking/biking extensively to explore isn't an option, you can use satellite imaging too (might be way easier).Follow that waterway from where it gets close to any development to when it gets away from it. What you're looking for is any place where the waterway gets subverted (is converted to go under something), either because it hits a road way, or something similar. This should be pretty easy to spot, because the river will just stop. Frequently they'll just go underneath a roadway, but occasionally they won't come out on the other side.
>see pic 1
You can use normal map view as well, if it lists waterways, just look for breaks in the blue line :)

This is also something to look for when you're just out and about, where there are bars on one side of the street, but not a matching set on the other side.

1a. If there are no huge subversions, the next best thing is probably getting out there and walking along the waterway, looking for drains. You can use satellite maps to do this, look for things that look like tiny rivers going from the end of development to the waterway
>see pic 2

2. If there aren't any drains there, or you lack major waterways in your area, you can try looking for golf courses, especially ones near neighborhoods. I haven't figured out why, but there's usually some kind of watershed feature in these kind of areas. Look for odd groups of trees, and near bodies of water for odd features. Parks are good as well.
>see pic 3

3. If all else fails, a tip I got from somewhere is that some places have laws against building on top of an underground structure, leading to odd, sometimes long running gaps where stuff probably should be built. Occasionally, for some reason, drains will have extremely small outlets, but the structures updrain will be large enough to fit into, so you may need to take a risk and pop a manhole or two if you think you can get away with it.
>see pic 4, theres a fairly large drain under here, but the outlets are all too small to get into. (manhole not pictured).

if absolutely all else fails
I've heard of people going to their counties civil engineering office and just simply asking for the drain maps. You can make up a reason if you want, I'm not sure if you need one or not, as I'm not sure if these kind of things are required to be accessible by the public (you paid for them to be built, after all). Also remember utility workers usually have maps of ALL buried utilities, so a quick question to one of them is an option too.

I hope that helps :)

Such a cool image btw. Reminds me of a quote from Access All Areas (by ninjalicious):

>When someone in Toronto says they'/e at the northeast corner of Yonge and Bloor, they're being imprecise.
>there are lots of places to be at that corner, including
>35 storeys up on the roof of the Hudson's bay centre
>at various abandoned floors or mechanical rooms within the tower
>inside the towers elevator shafts
>in the pedestrian walkway under the street
>at the abandoned movie theatres or the abandoned nightclub in the buildings basement
>in the mazes of service corridors, steam tunnels and storage rooms in the various subbasements
>inside the small man-made cave accessed through those service corridors
>in the subway tunnels, mechanical rooms and ventilation shafts under than
>in the storm rains, sewers and water tunnels under that.
>Oh, and I suppose being at street level is also a possibility, though certainly the least interesting one

>>132
weird, your first board other than /b/? Everyone should go /v/, /pol/, and /a/ at least once.

>>133
hey man, welcome to the new thread :) I hope we get some more interesting stuff to read as well :D

Looks like this place decided to make it super easy for me.

>>138
You'll probably have a harder time constantly getting dubs here unless you're the first person to respond after this post Glad you came by, hope you enjoy being on a slower board :) Let us know if you ever get to exploring!

>>140
>can confirm
Have you tried it? If you have, please give some details. I've been worried to ask about the ones in my local county, although I suppose I could make up a decent lie...about the search warrant though, drain exploring isn't even a felony, I sorta doubt they'd bother?
>have even one thing from a drain
like something you took from a drain? Or something related to a drain? I know stealing something from any place you explore can push it right away into felony territory, I'm not sure about just having the information though.
>>142
looks like a lovely drain. WTF county is that? That's even better than the version Denver county has! I'm happy someone else managed to find their watershed plan, I know it's pretty hit and miss. Thanks for posting! do make sure to give us some stories as soon as you have them :)

>>146
>>150
It didn't die of old. I'll be honest, I got a little too drunk and starting spamming, they ended up banning me for a couple weeks and deleting every post by my IP, which took out the OP of the thread. If it's any consolation, I've uploaded the thread in the link below, minus a few last minute posts:
http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/469888/_b_%20-%20Drain%20Exploring.mht

>>148
Ha. fuck I wish it were that simple here (who knows, it might be). I'm probably going to try it pretty soon, I could record it and upload it here, if anyone is interesting. I kinda need the maps for my county, they're installing some new shit I want to look at before I check out.

Again guys, sorry about getting the thread deleted, but at least we doubled the traffic here :) I'll be posting some more pictures in here around thursday for my birthday explore, drop back by if you can :)

>>154
I hope you just forgot to share stories and actually had a great time!

>>153
Birthday is this thursday. Planning on a few unique drains being open, hopefully can get some picture/video. First time taking someone else into the drains also.

Pic semi related, posted as a possible drain location, turned out to be 4 identical drains, right next to each other I should have guessed

There is one drain that has opened up though, can't wait to get down there with a camera and a parter

>>156
We had bad snow yesterday which was in melt today, so no pictures. Did get some interesting new lighting methods though, should make for some fun, maybe some nice pictures. Also found a few new drains thanks to the increased outflow.

if no new posts in the next day or so
I think it's time for an urbex general in /b/. I hope to see some of you there!

pic is from http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread.asp?fid=1&threadid=117716

>>153
> I've uploaded the thread in the link below, minus a few last minute posts:
Thanks OP, I thought it was lost forever. True bro. You deserve this board.

>>164
I was the guy in vancouver looking to start drain exploring and urban exploring, someone gave me a few links to vancouver specific places to start looking at and I lost the links. But thanks to you I have them again.

P.S. I'd recommend the name Drain Explorer, rolls off the tongue better. But a drain guy is fine too

>>184
Suddenly being flooded is sort of a concern in any storm drain, almost always from rain/snow melt, so it's easy to significantly lower this risk by just avoiding drains when its going to rain/during the day/early night after snowfall.

I'll be honest, when I first thought about it, I was terrified as this as well. Researching more about their structure and function helped some, spending 2-3 minutes here and there in and around them helped more, until I worked up the courage to finally go into one.

I hope you get into exploring them! Don't push yourself/your luck, go as slow as you need to. There are great drain safety basics at http://www.caveclan.org/safety.html

If you do go, come back and let us know how it went!

pic related, from first trip.

I remember exploring drains that fed into a lake near whereI used to live as a kid, it was super fun, but we had to use lighters as a light source because we always forgot to bring flashlights haha
Also they're neat because you can find cool stuff that was washed down there!

>>132
>>134
Agreed, those 3 are very important spots to visit after /b/, and then of course, smaller but more distinct and calm boards like here

>>188
>RIP Ninjalicious
cool

I've found empty fire extinguishers, knifes/needles in gutterboxes, tires, lots of dog/kids toys, never any really weird architecture (other than one that had a bunch of wood in it wood. in a drain.), not like sitting in it, but used in the construction.

Only really cool/funny graffiti I've found is webm related, this drain was covered in it, must have taken all night.

bump

Holy shit, I just discovered my city has this thing called GIS Viewer that has very detailed information for stormwater drains (aswell as other things) it even includes the diameter of them which is cool.

Maybe other places around the world do this too?

Here's mine, for Auckland, New Zealand:
http://maps.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/aucklandcouncilviewer/

Hey drainbros, I was wandering in the forest preserve the other day and found some river overflow drain outlets.

The first one I explored seemed like people had been there before. I saw footprints on the snow/ice.

I got about 50 feet in before the ice started letting water in and crackling a bit. I didn't want to find myself in ankle-deep icy water so I backed off. It was pretty spooky in there, very dark and some hollow echoing noises in the distance.

I tried to roughly trace the length of the tunnel from the surface and I ended up finding these grates. They're the same grates that the deep tunnel system (a huge sewer overflow tunnel deep under the whole city) uses. So I think this outlet carries overflow from the river into the deep tunnel system.

The next tunnel I tried exploring was under a small river bridge. This one had a lot less clearance and I had to slide my knees across the ice and propel myself with my hands.

As I got about 25 feet in the humming noise from the end of the tunnel got much louder. Sounded like rushing air and machinery. Kind of spooky considering I couldn't see a damn thing. Same problem occurred as before with the ice. Water started seeping in from the sides and I could tell I'd be crawling through ice water soon enough.

In the future I'll have to either find tunnels that don't connect to the deep tunnel system, or get some nice tall boots and go during dry season, and also get a better flashlight.

OP here, sorry, still no new pictures, but did manage to go on my first expedition with another person, although we only got to hit a few 30 minute long ones, it was still fun. I'm thinking of giving up on fancy cameras and just using a disposable with a decent flash, then just scanning so I can finally upload some here.

>>396
Overflows are super fun if you can find them, I've heard that Combined overflows, although they can be dirty/stinky, tend to be way bigger/more noteworthy than separate systems, but I've never seen one myself. We do have a few human sized storm overflows though, sucks they're always full of spiders/murky, questionable water.

>>397
start of spring is pretty much the worst time for draining, sadly. You should go back and figure out what the sound was inb4 it's a small trickle of water distorted by the drain. judging from the pictures if you go back at the right time of year it might be decently sized, assuming it's round. Whats wrong with the deep tunnel system?

Thanks for sharing, by the way, what sort of camera are you using? Just phone camera? Or are they not taken deep enough to worry about a shitty flashlight?

>>371
tl;dr if it's not locked or bolted or welded shut, use a crowbar if you're on ground level, if you're already in the drain, and can put your legs on something sturdy and not slippery, put your back flat against the cover and push upwards with your legs.

If you mean manhole covers, sometimes they can't be opened, ones like in >>396 can be locked/bolted shut, and even plain ones can be welded shut, usually if you find them this way, they'll be like that for years, but larger access points like outfalls and such, although sometimes locked, occasionally get left open for a few weeks for whatever reason, so worth checking back once a month or so if it looks good. If it's not locked/welded/bolted/even found one once that opened up directly into solid concrete, you should be able to open them one way or another. Link at end of post Attached PDF has some basic safety/how to information.

Outside of the usual padlock/bolt/weld stuff stopping you, there are a wide variety of locking mechanisms which can be integrated into the manhole itself. If you run into something like this, it probably either means it leads to something private/not a drain, or your city has had major problems with theft and you should be extremely stealthy if you want to open it. I suppose you could try to find the maker of the manhole and see if you can find information about the locking mechanism, see if you can make your own tool etc, but it's probably too much work at that point, especially since there's almost always another way in.

I know it goes without saying that drains can be dangerous, but reminder people have died falling into manholes, and people have lost fingers to manhole covers.

http://www.oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles/phreak/removing_manhole_covers.pdf

>>400
>You should go back and figure out what the sound was inb4 it's a small trickle of water distorted by the drain.
Definitely sounded machine-like. On the surface at the end of the bridge there was some sort of electrical/mechanical box on the roadside, I should've investigated it. I'll go back sometime.

>Whats wrong with the deep tunnel system?
I wouldn't want to go down there. It's maximum 350 feet below the surface and probably always has a current going through it. Also probably monitored by water district workers. I'd like to see the overflow into it though. Maybe on a drier day.

>Thanks for sharing, by the way, what sort of camera are you using?

Nikon D3200 with Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8-4.5 lens. I've tried a combination of things, using a flash, using a flashlight, and using a long exposure. Tunnels are fucking dark!

Regarding the mechanic noise at the end of the tunnel, I messed around with my shots and I'm seeing this weird striped thing at the end there. What could it be?

Is the tunnel just bending? Is the wall dark because of water trickling down it? Does the tunnel open up above?

Gonna have to go back...

I've been studying up on sewers and what I entered was certainly the outfall tunnels that connect to the river from the main sewer channels. They have some sort of lock system in place so that if the whole sewer system gets over capacity from storm water then it will release into the river.

Some kind citizen, in attempting to pull data from the water district database in order to track sewage outfall into the river, made pic related map. Score! Turns out they used FOIA requests to force the water district in handing them over network maps so they could graph the data accurately.

Oh and that machine noise I heard? I'm thinking it's a lifting/pumping station. They're built in case they need a main sewer line to run in one direction but gravity won't allow it.

Here's another picture I dug up. Makes me scared of falling right into a deep tunnel.

I'm thinking I should try breaking into a manhole or one of those grates instead. Once I'm in there are probably more human-friendly areas to explore.

>>402
looks like it's dark from water running it down from a side pipe.

>>406
>>405
Looks like you have some drain explorers in your area, have you been able to find any sort of circles/groups of people to explore with?

That's a good idea using FOIA though, maybe I should try that in my county, I've been trying to think of the best strategy for getting at the maps.

>>401
Long exposure is something I've wanted to try, for those stretches with a tiny amount of light pouring in every 200ft or so, I'd still be worried about dunking anything I brought into there.

Exploring the deep tunnel system could be a blast, I wonder if you could find any 'decommissioned' sections? Bringing some climbing equipment down there with a couple other people could be a fucking blast, if you knew a few thousand gallons of water weren't about to kill you.

Our dry season is coming up out here, hope it's the same out there, soggy drains suck.