North branch(es)
Wed, Apr 10th, 2013
posted by nonconmat

We went left at the big junction, then left again at the junction upstream of there, into the older, cast-in-place concrete pipe. We went to the (walkable) end of that, where it ends in a wall and a small, crawlable pipe to the left. The crawlable pipe has a tall room at its first node, so you should check that out. That's as far as we went.

On the way back to the junction, we checked out a small, crawlable pipe at about waist height that went to a grate in the middle of a parking lot. There we could get a GPS signal to determine our location, and saved the location.

Coming out of a small branch

We returned to the junction, and went up the newer RCP (1973 I think was a date we found stamped on the inside of the pipe). Most manholes were spray painted with "STREET" but after maybe 20 or 30 minutes, once we were bored of the RCP, we found a manhole that was not marked. A quick glance through the "keyhole" on the lid revealed a parking lot lamp, and we didn't hear any cars driving anywhere nearby, so we popped the lid. Sure enough, it was in the middle of a parking lot.

Exit

Upon exiting, we found that we were in the same lot as the grate we had marked on our map earlier -- it was maybe 20 feet away from the manhole we used to exit. 20 feet away above ground, half a mile or so apart underground.