Hey everyone, been a lurker on here a while, and I haven't ever been able
to find any solid places to go, or exploring partners. Recently I just
went on a trip from Chicago to California with some friends that had
a sense of adventure, and along the way we stopped in SD and CO to
visit the missile silos there. Although these stories take place in the western part of the country, this is all being written from my Chicago apartment. After all of this happened I have the need to go on more adventures around my home town. If anyone reading this is planning some explorations in Chicago or its surrounding cities let me know, I'd love to see some more spots.
SO.
Our initial plan was to hit up some of the silos along highway 90 in the
southern part of South Dakota. We weren't able to find any other urban
explorers who'd been to these particular coordinates before, so we were
hoping we'd be the first to get inside and snap some pictures. From the
satellite images, we could see a long overgrown road, leading to some
round silo doors and old concrete poking out of the ground. As far as we
knew, this was uncharted territory. We bought head lamps, p100 masks,
rope, and glow sticks, expecting an experience of a lifetime. What we got
was something much different.
It was a windy night around, 11pm. As our beatup sedan rolled closer and
closer to the exit that our navigation system pointed us to, our theories
about what might be inside got more and more wild. We called outside
friends and let them know where we were going to be, in case we something
happened to us. All the precautions were taken care of, but still our
minds raced with what we might find or run into.
After a quick pit stop to check our gear, we parked a half mile away from
the overgrown road, grabbed our backpacks, and set off. Since this was
somewhat of a flat area surrounded by farmland, our flashlights being seen
from a distance was a big concern. So we walked down this road in complete
darkness. With only the faint glow of the moon reflecting off the
dilapidated road. Unsettling is a bit of an understatement, since this was
a part of the country that none of us had been to before.
After a walk that seemed to last forever, a frame of the big metal sign
that used to hold the military warnings that we recognized from the
archived footage, faded in from the darkness. There was still barbed wire
left over, with signs that other explorers had climbed this same fence. We
scoped out the main gate before climbing over a gap in the chain link
fence. Seemed to be a fairly new padlock on the gate. Not something we'd
anticipated, but we'd come this far, so the most obvious choice was to
press on regardless.
We climb over the fence and keep walking down the path into the darkness.
At this point we figured it was a safe time to turn one flash light on
low, since our potential entry point could be coming up any second. About
5 more minutes of walking and the concrete road begins to split off. The
satellite images were running through my brain, and this was the area
where we'd be able to spot the first silo door. We figured we'd check out
the entry to see if we could get in first, then come back and look at that
stuff later.
Kept walking up the main path, staying cautious with our lights, turning
them on and off as we saw fit. The vague shape of a small cluster of
buildings comes into view, and the pace of our walking speed up a bit. We
were confident that the riskiest parts of the journey (in terms of getting
caught) were over. It was nothing but cake past this point. As the cluster
of buildings grew larger, we turned on our lights to look for a POE. I
catch a glimpse of what looks a bunch of eyes surrounding us in the
darkness, like a fucking horror movie. I whisper yell at my friend to
shine the light in the direction of the eyes. Illuminated in the darkness
is 15-20 cows a couple of feet in front of us.
"HOLY FUCK, BACK UP. BACK UP."
Sidenote: In my experience with cows, they're gentle, lovable animals.
However, one of the members in our crew was educating us on the drive over
that cows WILL charge you if you get between them and a calf, or get too
close to the things that they hold dear. And we were a couple feet away
from crossing that line, right next to a calf.
Most of them were looking up at us, kind of groggy having just been woken
up from their slumber. And there seemed to be "guards" posted up around
the collage of potential hamburgers.
We back up about 50 feet away from the black and white demons and regroup.
The decision is made to simply walk around the cows through the dark field
to the POE. One keeping an eye on the guardians, and the other two
covering the sides in case we run into another herd, or god knows what
else. Anything could happen at this point. We were in the middle of a
fucking mine field for all we knew.
Moving in a triangle formation through the thick grass we make it up to
another barbed wire fence between us and the grass hill that we assumed
was the main entrance. We walk along side it until the front entrance came
into view. There was a brand new white door with a small window with a
view inside. Atop the concrete block housing the door was an object that
appeared to be one of these:
http://ecx.images-...YYFLvL._SX342_.jpg Beside the entrance was a telephone pole with a white object that had a
solar panel attached. Assumably a camera. It was at the point that we were
about to look for another way to get in (an escape hatch, a vent, etc)
when someone spotted two headlights pulling up in the distance. We
silently watched and listened. A car door closed and a flashlight was
turned on. In hindsight, it could have been our imaginations overacting on
account of the ever-present threat of a hamburger parade. Or maybe the
owner of the land just finished his last natty light, saw us on the
camera, grabbed his shotgun, and got into his ford bronco. Either way, we
sped walked the fuck out of there. Double checking the cows on the way out.
After the chaos subsided, we found ourselves back at the road fork, still
on the land. We decided to go and at least look at the silo doors, so as
to get something out of this journey. A couple hundred feet down the road
was another small hill. Looked like another door, or maybe one of those
air vents. One of us shined a light directly toward the hill, revealing
yet ANOTHER herd of cows, staring right at us. Fuck that, lets get out of
here.
And so we started the walk of shame back down the long dark road. Defeated, and still a bit jumpy.
Even though our first attempt was shut down we still had another one to
check out. So we loaded everything back into the car and headed off to our
next silo.
There is still a long story about our other two silo adventures, only one
ended up being successful. but I figured I'd leave it off here for
now. If you want to hear the rest I'll type it out and post the
pictures. Cheers