So I've always been interested in these old, abandoned places, and being a photographer, knew it was time to act on this interest. Was not disappointed.
Me and a couple buddies decided to break our UE cherries with a cool, but easy location - an old ghost town. We did some research and found out where NOT to park, but unfortunately we couldn't quite choose the best place to park. I don't mean blending in - we blended in PERFECTLY, know one the wiser what we, or our car, were up to. No. It was the 1-2 mile descent we choose down a 45+ degree incline with loose dirt and rocks. We were not prepared, but luckily my skate shoes held (really, I didn't expect such a big hike). Here's where GPS saved our lives, literally, as we were headed straight for a rock cliff. But to our left was more steep incline that went all the way down! So we decided to skip the cliffs and go down the hill. Then challenge 2: we were on the wrong side of the river. Luckily, as expected, there was a bridge connecting the train tracks and cart path. Well, we got there, and saw a different location we could check out. So instead of going to the place we drove out to see, we decided we'd quickly check out this place right by it:
1
Looked cool. There were some abandoned (and well barricaded) mine shafts. I was a bit relieved they were barricaded- it would have been cool, but really really dangerous. Instead, we checked out the building.
2
3
4
5
Looked like we hit the jackpot! A place no one knew about that we could fully explore. Well, time was still against us so we only were able to explore one building, but it's an untampered piece of history, right? Wrong.
6
Someone left a nice tribute there to the film "Thankskilling", the best worst movie you'll ever see. Well, besides all the graffiti, at least it still had some very cool parts to it, like this very eerie door . . .
7
. . . that led straight to the profane-laced bathroom. Damn graffiti'ers.
8
Wonder what history that holds, eh? Unfortunately, I didn't capture the cliché hanging light above the two stalls and shower, but I captured the most important part - the toilet. We still had places to be, so we left this building and went to our destination. But first stopped in a more modern looking building for all of 5 seconds:
9
Unfortunately, it was too late to go to our real destination. Yes, it was light out, but we only had about an hour or two of light before making our way up, presumably, the same way we came down. Except we decided that wasn't possible. GPS saved us for the second time: The tracks came close to the road we came in on. Yay! And more unfortunate news, once on the road, we still had a 3-4 mile trek up a windy, dirt road.
But we learned quite a bit on this trip. We're going back to check out the real location, and we have a better plan of attack, including getting up early to get the longest possible journey inside, and a parking spot, still not out of the ordinary, but not 4 miles up a windy road and 2 miles up a steep mountainside. Luckily, no equipment got ruined, and all our pants are intact (from sliding down the loose mountainside). Just some cuts, mosquito bites, and holes in my long sleeved shirt.
