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 LuminousAphid
 
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Gender: Male
Armchair Explorer
 |  |  |  | University of Washington Steam Tunnels
< on 4/1/2007 6:38 PM >
|  | | | I was looking around the web today for places to explore, as I am just getting into this hobby, and I came across several references to steam tunnels under the UW campus, including an article in the UW's The Daily newspaper with accounts of exploration:
http://www.thedail...alesFromTheTunnels
I'm in my second year as an undergraduate at the UW, and I've never heard anything about them, although there are multiple inlet and outlet grates (one near red square cautions drivers not to idle their engines because of an air intake), but I never thought about what they might be. It sounds interesting, though probably more risky than anything. It sounds and seems like they're likely to be populated during the day at least, and that's just asking for trouble. Maybe at night it would be a cool place to explore, though. It's a public campus, so you wouldn't get cited for trespassing until you were actually inside.
Has anyone gone to these? Or would you want to?
Also, nuclear reactor ftw?
"See you guys, you never listen to me. I said there was gonna be trouble but you didn't listen to me. You guys are crazy. You know, you guys are self destructive. There's a funny farm and it has your names written all over it. But I'm gettin' out of here. I'm... I smell ice cream!" |
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wastepdx
Location: Portland, OR
| | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 1 on 4/1/2007 11:00 PM >
| | | | There isn't much left of the reactor, just a concrete room. All the cool stuff has been removed.
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LuminousAphid
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Gender: Male
Armchair Explorer
| | | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 2 on 4/2/2007 10:07 PM >
| | | | That's too bad.
Also, sorry if I was supposed to be "secret" and not mention names specifically, but it seemed like this was well-known enough that it didn't really matter.
"See you guys, you never listen to me. I said there was gonna be trouble but you didn't listen to me. You guys are crazy. You know, you guys are self destructive. There's a funny farm and it has your names written all over it. But I'm gettin' out of here. I'm... I smell ice cream!" |
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MoleNet94
 
Location: Skagit County, WA
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 3 on 4/3/2007 4:42 AM >
|  | | | I did lots of tunnel exploring at WSU, and always wanted to see the UW tunnels. A friend attending UW a few years back tried to convince an acquaintance on the Physical Plant staff to give us a "guided tour", but that never happened. Too bad.
All I've heard suggests that the UW tunnels are full of motion sensors, but then that's probably just a universal rumor in college tunneling these days. We burned countless Friday nights exploring all the miles of tunnels under WSU, and never saw any security measures save for a few locked gates (which tended to be open on subsequent visits...silly!). Your mileage may vary. If you do go down, I very much look forward to your findings.
Some of the UW tunnels are deep underground. I know this because I observed the construction of the parking structure near the Fishery Sciences building more than a decade ago. During construction, a new tunnel junction was dug just off the northeast corner of the structure. A decent-sized house could have fit inside, and tunnels entered not only from multiple angles, but on multiple *levels*. That was what really got me interested in seeing the UW tunnels. One day, perhaps...
Regards,
MoleNet94
[last edit 4/3/2007 4:43 AM by MoleNet94 - edited 1 times]
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UEinthe253
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 4 on 4/3/2007 4:37 PM >
| | | | There are maps. I dunno how reliable they are, but here. http://tinyurl.com/ysbgcg. Try Google'ing "UW tunnel maps" theres an email address where you can order a full sized one from the students at UW. Have fun, LuminousAphid! ^^
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MoleNet94
Location: Skagit County, WA
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 5 on 4/3/2007 8:01 PM >
| | | | None of the 10+yo maps I've seen include the new buildings down around Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (or whatever they're called). There's also the new Paul Allen CS building and a few other new-ish ones. I suppose you oughtta just go and find the darkest loading-dock-type corners you can and hope the grates are unlocked  The article referenced at the top of this thread seems to cast doubt on the rumors of motion sensors, etc., which is good. However one of the "perpetrators" mentions having a hard time finding a way out and having to go back to where he got in. That is concerning. Best do a bit of scouting and map study ahead of time and have an exit strategy. IMO, any trip requiring you to do a lot of retracing of your steps greatly improves your chances of being nabbed.
Regards,
MoleNet94
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LuminousAphid
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Gender: Male
Armchair Explorer
| | | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 6 on 4/3/2007 9:53 PM >
| | | | Yeah. I've been down there the past couple days for classes, and have been looking around looking for entrances and such. Trouble is, I have no idea what I'm really looking for, or if any of the things I did see are entrances to the tunnels, or something else. A couple of grates had padlocks on them, but one I walked by toady (which was busted open a couple quarters ago, fixed now) didn't look like it was locked. I'll check the maps if I find any and see if any of the places I've seen are possible entrances, and maybe stick around after school tomorrow and do some more extensive looking. Hopefully I won't look too suspicious with my backpack, but I guess I don't have anything to worry about until I'm inside anyway.
I might try getting in touch with someone at the dept. as well, you never know. I may be able to get someone to take me down there, or at the least get some info.
"See you guys, you never listen to me. I said there was gonna be trouble but you didn't listen to me. You guys are crazy. You know, you guys are self destructive. There's a funny farm and it has your names written all over it. But I'm gettin' out of here. I'm... I smell ice cream!" |
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Deuterium
   
Location: PNW
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 7 on 4/4/2007 2:55 AM >
| | | | Apparently getting caught down there is a "first degree criminal trespassing" carrying a $5,000 fine..
http://www.thedail...alesFromTheTunnels
If you're not a student there, you'll probably get banned from the campus and if you are, you'll have a dire consequence through Student Life.
From what they told the media, at University of Texas @ Austion, those caught in th e tunnels are expelled from the university.
[last edit 4/4/2007 2:57 AM by Deuterium - edited 1 times]
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MoleNet94
Location: Skagit County, WA
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 8 on 4/4/2007 3:39 AM >
| | | | Posted by Deuterium
From what they told the media, at University of Texas @ Austion, those caught in th e tunnels are expelled from the university.
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That's certainly what most universities would want you to think, too. And it's what most college tunnelers are probably worried about. Our group's usual defense was just to go down on Friday nights at around midnight or so, when you can be sure that most of the university security drones are buzzing around greek row, dealing with the usual armpit of society therein. Having some kind of rough plan (i.e., what you're going to do, and if you've got a map, where you're going to go and how you're going to get out) is a "must". I don't know about the UW, but at WSU the tunnels were rarely gated where they entered buildings, so the easiest way out was generally via a building basement, which meant we had many dozens of exits at our disposal (though there were particular favorites).
The other tactic, hotly debated, is the use of radios. We almost always went out as a group of four, and always at least two (NEVER alone). For the most part, if more than two people came, two went down and the others stayed on the surface to help map. Those underground would call to the person/people on the surface to listen for knocking, or to stomp on manhole covers so that we could correlate positions and write things down. We always imagined that if those on the surface spotted a SWAT team heading for the tunnels, they could alert us or something, but there was never a need, and we went down at least 30 times. After we'd completed our map, we stopped leaving people above ground, although more than two underground proved slow-going and noisy, and I never much cared for it. Fortunately, by that time, we'd identified some very "choice" entrances through which we could have ushered a party of 50-100 people without drawing attention to ourselves
Anyway, since you have the great advantage of a ready-made map, I'd spend some time walking around (on the surface) and noting where the tunnels seem to be, where they're headed (what sides of which buildings), etc., so that you can have that picture in your head while you're down there...
...that, or use the Quake engine to create a computer model of the tunnels so that you can go on virtual training missions, hehehe...wouldn't that ROCK?! 
Regards,
MoleNet94
[last edit 4/4/2007 5:31 AM by MoleNet94 - edited 1 times]
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LuminousAphid
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Gender: Male
Armchair Explorer
| | | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 9 on 4/4/2007 5:14 AM >
| | | |
...that, or use the Quake engine to create a computer model of the tunnels so that you can go on virtual training missions, hehehe...wouldn't that ROCK?!
Regards,
MoleNet94
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Haha, nice idea. Although it would be a little bit different without my trusty railgun when I actually did go down 
"See you guys, you never listen to me. I said there was gonna be trouble but you didn't listen to me. You guys are crazy. You know, you guys are self destructive. There's a funny farm and it has your names written all over it. But I'm gettin' out of here. I'm... I smell ice cream!" |
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UEinthe253
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 10 on 4/4/2007 6:32 AM >
| | | | That would be badass. I'm sure it'd help you with knowing your way around. In any case, here's UW's utility maintenance page, which may or may not help. In the least it'll provide a number to call if you want to gather more info about how often the tunnels are patrolled and what the security measures are. Try pretexting. Just thought I'd submit it. http://www.washing...erv/ops/steam.html
=D
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Deuterium
Location: PNW
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 11 on 4/5/2007 1:00 AM >
| | | | I'm down if someone wants to setup a UW tunnels mission.
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Kilgore Trout
Location: Nashville, TN
Gender: Male
| |  | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 12 on 4/5/2007 6:08 AM >
| | | | Hell yes. I too would groove on a trip into the tunnels.
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LuminousAphid
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Gender: Male
Armchair Explorer
| | | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 13 on 4/5/2007 6:23 AM >
| | | | Posted by Deuterium
I'm down if someone wants to setup a UW tunnels mission.
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By the way, a lot of the locks did have "Best" marked on them, though a couple were Schlage. I was surprised at how many had no locks at all; I found at least 3 possible entrances that were completely open, at least that I could see. I'm starting to want to do this more and more.
I got a good tip from some website about campus tunnels also; Friday night is good because all the police will be up in Greek row keeping the zombies out of the streets.
I'm gonna keep looking around the next couple days, as I've only checked about 1/3 of the entrances on the lame map I found online. I'll keep you guys posted since I'm down there every day anyway.
"See you guys, you never listen to me. I said there was gonna be trouble but you didn't listen to me. You guys are crazy. You know, you guys are self destructive. There's a funny farm and it has your names written all over it. But I'm gettin' out of here. I'm... I smell ice cream!" |
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MoleNet94
Location: Skagit County, WA
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 14 on 4/5/2007 7:02 PM >
| | | | Posted by LuminousAphid
I got a good tip from some website about campus tunnels also; Friday night is good because all the police will be up in Greek row keeping the zombies out of the streets.
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May have been my site Or not; I'm sure that reasoning has been used elsewhere, but it's what we always did, and we were never bothered.
Interesting that they lock the grates like that. And a little too bad, as it keeps the locked ones from being viable exits. At WSU, all the grates were ordinary circular things on sidewalks, and they were secured by chains that hung down from the centers and were clipped to the ladders going down. If latched, there was no easy way in, however you could easily unclip them from below and get out. This approach has obvious safety merit too, tunnel exploring aside. We used this to our advantage many times to "create" new entrances near places where we wanted to explore so that we could pick up where we left off the following Friday.
I may be up for a recon mission, if any more is to be done. We'll see if I can be dared to go tuneling. After dozens of "dives" one begins to wonder if one's number is "up"
MoleNet94
[last edit 4/5/2007 7:04 PM by MoleNet94 - edited 2 times]
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LuminousAphid
Location: Lynnwood, WA
Gender: Male
Armchair Explorer
| | | | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 15 on 4/6/2007 2:53 AM >
| | | | Eh... PM me if anyone wants to discuss further. Sorry mods.
"See you guys, you never listen to me. I said there was gonna be trouble but you didn't listen to me. You guys are crazy. You know, you guys are self destructive. There's a funny farm and it has your names written all over it. But I'm gettin' out of here. I'm... I smell ice cream!" |
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MoleNet94
Location: Skagit County, WA
Gender: Male
| | Re: University of Washington Steam Tunnels
<Reply # 16 on 4/6/2007 3:07 AM >
| | | | Since dissent is patriotic, I'll say that I rather disagree with the first batch of pics being deleted, but the post with the map was probably asking for it
Anyway, a pic of the actual underground is much anticipated!
Cheers,
MoleNet94
EDIT: PS: "Entry details" are such subjective things. Most pictures of abandoned buildings probably include a door, after all...
[last edit 4/6/2007 3:09 AM by MoleNet94 - edited 2 times]
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