Small City, Small Drains-A Fascinating Tale of Brotherhood - Thread

I live in a small city of about 42,000 residents. Therefore, we don't get to do a lot of draining without taking a trip. We've always known about a few smaller drains nearby, but they're pretty small and cramped. Up until recently, my brother and I had only found local drains that look like this.

Over the winter however, with the leaves gone, I spotted an outfall tucked back in a ditch adjacent to the river. Usually the area is quite overgrown and easy to overlook. So we made a point to go check it out once the weather got nice.

We stopped by one night a few weeks ago for a quick scope to see if it was actually accessible. It was. We had walked a couple hundred feet in when we came to a small room with a manhole about 12 feet up with no ladder. It was there that we drank a shit load of beer.

Just past the first room, it changed from a 6' rcp to a corrugated tube of approximately the same diameter. We continued on as we uncomfortably straddled the water in the middle. We hadn't brought boots since we were only out for a bike ride and hadn't expected to actually go draining. After about another 150 feet of this, it changed from corrugated walking surface to a rocky riverbed and we could go no further with our tennis shoes. We vowed to return with boots.

On our return trip we were able to traverse the drain in its entirety. Once again, we stopped at the first room for beers.

Then we picked up where we had left off. We walked the corrugated tube, through the rocky riverbed, for a good distance when we found another room almost identical to the first. The water was a bit deeper here so we didn't really pause at this point. This one also served as a junction with 2 smaller rcps in either direction. Moving on, we found another room that was a bit more interesting and had a mini waterslide coming in from the left, a small rcp to the right, and another unreachable manhole towards the top. We paused to catch our breath.

After that, the corrugated tube continued to get smaller. Ducking was necessary with a diameter around 4 or 5 feet. We crouched our way along for what felt like forever as the water got a bit deeper. But, in reality, it was probably only about 20 minutes later when we came to a larger junction room with several rcps in different directions. It was a pretty cool room, worthy of a party, if only we could figure out how to get some seating down there. I was gonna try to get a few pictures of the room but I was interrupted. We must've gotten nearer to the surface because my phone started buzzing. It was my gal frantically trying to alert me that a thunderstorm had rolled in. The small corrugated tube continued on from here but we were certain that we knew where it led, which would have only been another 50 feet or so. We decided it was time to get out. Luckily this last junction room had a ladder up to a manhole. However, it was about 7' feet up to the first rung. I'm short as fuck but have hops like Spud Webb. We popped out exactly where we thought we were-right next to the interstate. Just as we had presumed, the small corrugated tube will lead under the interstate and terminate at a retention pond on the other side. On that side, there is a small outfall that we had also discovered last year and wondered about. So this night's mission effectively answered 2 curiosities in one shot.

All told, the drain runs at least half a mile and seems like it gets pretty full during the rainy season. It was a lot more extensive than we had expected. With the small size of our town, we were totally unaware of any infrastructure like this. But, after mapping the whole system, it all makes complete sense. The area in which the drain leads under the interstate is prone to flooding. I can remember a few times over the last 2 decades when the interstate traffic actually had to be shut down (or at least aided by state patrol) for periods of time. The retention pond is right next to where the freeway floods. When the water level gets to a certain height, it enters the tube and flows down to the river where we entered.

Upon exiting, we paused on the bike trail bridge that overpasses the interstate. Sure enough, there was a thunderstorm out there. It was here that we were gonna drink some more beer. But, after just one, it started raining really hard. It was like Forrest Gump said, "...big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night..." We had made it out of the drain just in time.

We ran a few hundred yards over to the truck stop where their jaws dropped. I had to use a line straight out of Relik's playbook. "Huntin' for crawdads" is what we told em. We bought some ponchos and walked back to the bikes after one of the greatest nights I've ever spent with my brother.

I use a little pink Kodak Easy Share point n shoot that was donated to me. I was quite pleased to achieve this photo with it.