First UE: Twas 6/2000... A group of my friends and myself got off on to the sublect of a six-foot tunnel by an office park, We talked about them for a hour or so, tales of twisting dark tunnels leading to "shit-loads" of other tunnels. I piped up and said: "Are we gonna just sit here and talk of them, or are we gonna do summat about it?!"

We all went badck to our apartments and got several flashlights, a book of matches, a rope, paper and markers. Well, I threw all out stuff into a backpack and I agreed to carry it. We hoofed it over to the channel containing the "big one"... I tied up a rop to the railing over the tunnel so that my larger friend would have sometihng to help him control his descent... We all ended up down there in the course of a minute or 2. I untied the rope and I passed everyone their lights and I untied the rope and we all formed a line, with the shorter guys up front, taller in back.

We entered the six foot paved metal pipe, it had a weird smell of wetness and tar... We trudged up this thing, around 2 bends, and came upon a RCP section, It contained a five-foot tunnel (Citadel II as it would be later named in 2006) The six of us split here. I was in the group of four that went down this pipe. The other 2 went down toward the infall and they discovered a 40" Paved metal pipie style connection that drained Platte and Murray intersection and King Soopers (which doesn't exist anymore) It contained several 2-foot RCPS that went to various places like the store mentioned, and several catch basins.

Back to the 5' RCP... It angled off the main tunnel, immediately bending 45degrees to the right, then it went into a steep slide, at about a 10% grade uphill, The first manhole room we entered had its cover missing. We stopped here to check our progress and map our location.

I popped up and noted that we were next to a Phillips 66 gas station, thus nailing our location accurately: Just off Platte, about 250 feet from the infall, by drain, and just 50 by sight. We all re grouped and headed to the second and third manholes. They rest about 30 feet underground, as I noticed by counting the shaft's sections. We came to the fourth manhle, I climbed the lader and popped that manhole (after bypassing the lock-bolt system the city installed years ago from below) It was by a streetlight post about 3/4 of the way to Academy blvd's overpass...

The rest of the group was waiting at the fifth room, a manhole junction. This room has two 5-foot RCPs with the left one going straight to an unknown location. The right one goes north, to the catch basins along Academy road, as we could tell by the heavy traffic sounds coming from it. Two of our group went down the right pipe, after five minutes, we saw a flashlight beam and and a guy running like he saw the Devil...

He "pussed" out and the other guy was following him all calm and collected, whilest looking at the panicked guy like he was insane or similar. We all regrouped and started the mile long hike, underground, to the outfall... We reached the outfall in about 30 minutes. The other two in our group had a lot to tell us, after they had explored the eastern most tunnels in the system, They basically told us that there wasa grate, below a 7-11 sign, a low box culvert under Murray, then a junction room containing five or so 2-foot RCPs, going in all directions. One of them leads to a manhole just off platte/murray, right by the crosswalk, resting just inches below the surface of the street.

We reached the outfall, June sun shinging on uis, blinding us in the process... We had to get used to all the non-drain sights and sounds all over again.

And the most interesing part: My mother asking me if I had been in a drain... I was all like: "Yeah, only cause I fell in!"
What a nice cover... And true too, cause the infall is in the grass, and it is a short section of channel, leading to a small box culvert under Platte ave.

It was the same day, later that evening. My friends and I decided to walk to what was nick-named the "Target Tunnels".

It was another CMP, paved, and a whopping SEVEN feet in diameter, with lots of water, from a spring that existed year-round. The water was high due to tree-limbs and a shopping cart caught up in the middle of the stretch of tunnel...

I decided to come UPSTREAM, while the rest of the boys went downstream, getting soaked from slipping and falling so much. I tied my rope to the cart and the tree-limb. I got up out of the pipe and started pulling... Sure enough, I dislodged the cart, and the water took care of the rest. I saw a cart and a better part of a tree getting washed out of the pipe at a pretty good rate of speed... The back-pressure on the "clog" was enough to clear the "line" (plumbers' terms)

As soon as the water fell to about a foot, we all went up the pipe and concluded that it was long, boring, and there was no need to enter it again. The Target parking lots drained into this tunnel via a 12" RCP coming into the roof of the seven foot CMP...

That ended my first encounter of Citadel II's many exciting features. In my opinion, a lot of draining stimulation... This is why I got into draining, and the under-world in general.

It was Thanksgiving of 2000, and I had discovered the way under Platte Ave, via Sand Creek's dry bridge, a triple barrel box culvert, about 8x12 feet wide in each barrel. It was sloped, and it has a impressive churn block setup at its southern end, the bridge also carries Edison Road (a frontage to Platte Ave on the North) I noticed a set of 5-Ft RCPs, twins at that, and I scouted that area for about 2 weeks as I would ride my bike under platte and off to the north to get a great workout off the hills that form the Rustic Hills and Cimerron Hills neighborhoods.

I entered these RCPs about 2:30 pm, and quicky discovered that they were pretty boring rather fast... They turned 45 degrees, had a manhole, then bent again, and had a grate in the cieling, went under Platte in a 6x6 foot box-culvert, and then that was the end of the drains. The other one paralelled it, so I only had to take one (the right pipe) to know what the other one did too... When I exited, it was about three, and I went aobut my normal bike ride.... I told my frind Kevin about it and he asked me one question... "Why did you go in them?" I said: "Well, Kevin, I went in them because they were there. I went in to see what was down there."

I entered the upper part of Citadel II in december 2000, when the water that was present in summertime was absent: the place was bone-dry.

I came across all the same features, and I made it to the fifth manhole: the junction room. I took the 2-foot RCP, squirming up it and up a sidepipe of that sidepipe to a gutter box that sits just south of the Guitar Center in Citadel Crossing, and I knew exactly where that junction room sat: Just east of Academy, off the north exit ramp.

I already knew that I couldnt pop the manhole on that gutterbox because the builders had locked up the manholes with a strapand a bolt... Why do developers do this?!
Isnt the sewer lid weighing 75 lbs enough to keep people out?!

By July of 2001, I had followed Sand Creek up to South Carefree circle, and I ran across another CMP: A four footer that went clear off to Academy along south Carefree... It was rather interesting because it was a straight up CMP and it has a few gutterboxes, manholes, and surprisingly enough: Very little grafitti in it...

And then there was a first for me that day: Running into fellow drainers. They were rather chill and helped me out A LOT...

The moral of the day:
GOD BLESS ALL DRAINERS

It was may 7th of 2006, almost five years after I had first went into a drain.

Why didnt I drain in five years??? Calhan. It has NO DRAINS. Just san-sewers. I first noticed "Chestnut" when I first started attending Colorado Technical University off Chestnut and Garden of the Gods rd, in Rockrimmon area of Colorado Springs on October 4th 2004.

I watched that drain for close to 2 years to see what its flows were like, people that were around, police presence and a slew of other things. On last thursday, I got to CTU early, and I "lost" my nosey step dad and headed off to Wendy's... Only I dropped down behind 7-11, walked right down the channel's sides, then I strolled up to the 5-foot RCP like I was a Dept. of Public Works worker...

I strapped on my head-lamp and climbed right in, as it was 3/4 the way up the 8-foot walls of that ditch. I entered the pipe, complete with 6" of water, and I splashed the water for the first few steps, then I adopted the "drain-walk" and went past the first angle, presumalby to line the pipe up in the middle of Chestnut.

I made it about a hundered feet in. The water was gurgling and babbling, like a drain with water in it normally does. I heard more noises, more weird distorted echoes, and what sounded like voices...

I had read about a homeless couple that lived down that drain a few years ago in the Colorado Springs Independant ("CS Indy"), and I thought it might just be them - I wasnt taking ANY chances with running into them without money, cigarettes, or beer/food/something to drink to give to them...

Gotta give em something if you're gonna be in "their space" I mean, do you usually go through someones house without respecting them or showing some respect to the people living there? No!!! You dont...

I re-entered Chestnut on Tuesday... It was to a trickle of water, water must have been up for some reason Thursday... I re-entered for photos of the angle-joint because it was rather interesting, I spent maybe 5 minutes in the five foot RCP... I also got shots of the wildlife in the area. The worst part was slipping ass-over-tit in Algae and mud. I was ok, Camera was great, I was dirty... I hoofed it to the college bathroom and spent the next 15 minutes wiping the "goo" off my pants...
Moral of the story: Algae sucks... A LOT.

The Citadel II. It was entered again on 5/19/2006. Check the UEDB Entry for it under "The Citadel" My story is there. Read it.

Later tonight, I will be entering the Very Obvious Tunnel, or rather, VOT. It is an eight-foot tall twisting tunnel under the Hillside neighborhood in downtown Colorado Springs. Autowitch and Scourge have explored the system, from outfall to the cable draped across the VOT (autowitch) and from outfall to a 2-foot RCP inlet east of Union Blvd. (Scourge) Fluffy, Kay, and I plan to go up each branch systematically and map the VOT System. One thing I can say (from reading on UER.ca) is the VOT is long and large, as well as impressive, to say the least... I bought some batteries on Thursday, and packed up my UE Kit for another Draining mission... As soon as I get off work, we shall get together at a local McDonalds and head off to see this cavernous drain system called VOT...