I visited this enormous chemical plant last year, early in the summer, during a period of record-breaking rain that had been plaguing the country during my visit. I'd seen quite a few photos of the place, mostly of the hydro plant at the center of the complex, that looked quite neat, so I decided to pay a visit for myself.
Despite being one of the most popular exploration sites for both locals and tourists in the entire country, what I discovered was that much of the complex had escaped documentation, at least as far as I knew. The "main" shots of it I'd seen posted were just a tiny sliver of what the facility had to offer.
Without spoiling too much, this place felt otherworldly, possessing an aura that only the very best and most alien of locations can hope to exude. My rough algorithm for ranking spots is, "how much does it make me feel like I've entered
The Zone from Stalker?", and this place scores a 10 out of 10, unqualified. My memories here are beyond surreal, and I hope by writing up this walkthrough I can solidify those memories for myself and perhaps transmit a little bit of the vibe to other curious folks.
Most of the photos below were taken by me, though a few were taken by my partner Snowman. As is my style, a lot of these photos are just quick documentary shots, so don't expect them to all be perfect compositions.
DAY 1:
Upon approaching, we found a back route in, bushwhacking though mountains of soaking wet foliage. Of course, after spending some time getting a feel for the place we realized there were many much easier routes in. But of course we knew nothing of those yet.
After some trekking we made it into the complex. The first building we entered was mostly stripped out, but offered sublime views from the top floor. It was a nice taste of things to come.
Then we started to descend. It was around this time that I first started to appreciate one of the most unique aspects of this location: its intense verticality. Enormous head races with gushing water waited higher up in the mountains, while deep snaking tunnels lurked far below. The distance from the uppermost to the lowest portions of the facility must have been at least a few hundred feet, though it's difficult for me to make a perfect estimate.
After descending a few stories, we popped out between buildings. I didn't want to stay outside for too long, as it was pouring rain, but I couldn't help but take note of this strange, well-like portal.
I grabbed a quick shot looking down the pit. The hole was quite deep, and lined with rough-cut stone. Keep this pit in mind for later.
After entering the next building, which was also rather empty, we found a tight stairwell that lead about four to six stories further down. It was then that we entered the "V" powerhouse.
If you've seen one photo, or one set, from this place, it's probably from here. As amazing as this power plant is, it's a bit of a mystery to me why you never see photos from anywhere else in the facility.
In any case, the equipment here was amazing. The generator resting atop the hydro turbine is one of the largest I've ever seen, and the control room was adorned with beautiful overground vines.
Snowman got this photo of me on the generator to show the scale - and I'm a pretty big guy!
I usually hate graffiti no matter what but this looked kind of cool
It also had some neat support structures and stairwells.
After poking around a little, we noticed a little cart on a track towards the back of the power house.
Going this way, it leads to right in front of the enormous generator:
If we follow it the other way, we get a surprise. See that rough cut rock in the back?
We were now at the base of the "well" from earlier. Presumably, the crane would lower equipment down the pit, and the cart would take it away.
Around this point, we also started to see hints that the complex went even deeper. There was a mysterious hole in the floor that continuously blew a gushing stream of air out at high velocity. I actually have a video of myself sticking my head into it and throwing rocks into it (only for the rocks to be blown right back out by the ridiculous wind), but I don't think I can embed that here. We also noticed this spiral stairwell that lead down to a network of tunnels:
But, by this point we were out of daylight. We left, found a place to sleep, and resolved to come back the next morning.
DAY 2:
We returned, taking the same route as before. As it was the entire trip, it was soaking wet, raining pretty much the entire day. I wasn't upset - it added to the atmosphere and ambience.
This time, instead of heading up, we climbed up to the race gate, one of the highest points of the complex.
Getting there was an exercise in slowing worming our way up a patchwork network of support structures and ladders built around the path of these enormous penstocks:
Eventually we did reach the top, which was christened with this beautiful stone gate. Getting a good angle on it wasn't really possible, but man it was cool.
The buildings and stand-alone rooms at the top were mostly small and empty, but they had a few things of interest here and there.
There was also a tunnel leading into the mountainside. It had a little room containing what I believe was some sort of flow control mechanisms. I'm not sure, I didn't have much time to investigate as the underground room was filled to the brim with thousands and thousands of spiders that I didn't feel like spending much time around.
Otherwise, the main thing to see up here was more overhead views of the complex.
Eventually we started the slow process of descending. I knew there was supposed to be hall of steam compressors somewhere on site, so we set out to look for that. It would actually be one of the last things we found there, but we found plenty of other crazy stuff along the way.
This is the first building we tried when looking for the compressors. It was mostly stripped out, but the ceiling was decorated with an odd array of what appeared to be ceramic-insulated transformers. I've honestly never seen anything like it, before or since.
My favorite part of this building was this antique portable ladder, used presumably to access the transformer array overhead.
Here's me trying to move it around for a better photo - I almost lifted too high and had it flip over on me, but I was able to get it back under control.
Somewhere outside this building - I don't exactly remember where - was another stripped out building. Like this one, it was mostly empty but had one really neat feature - this incredible iron stairwell.
Here's a photo of me trying to get my lines straight
Next, we entered a huge warehouse-type building we thought might hold the compressors. Instead I saw one of the craziest "what the fuck" scenes I've come across in my entire exploring career - this crazy collection of enormous vintage theater sets, thrown into storage and left to molder.
This weird theater was in one of the buildings adjacent to this. I didn't really think it was worth shooting, but I got this quick light painted shot of it for documentary purposes.
After picking our jaws up from the floor and exiting the theater warehouse, we entered another stripped out building at the edge of the property. Like the other stripped out buildings, it still had a few neat things to offer.
I don't know why I didn't get a photo of this mural for myself, it was neat
The main thing to see in this building were these instruments, similar to those you see in metal processing facilities.
This is pretty much the only angle I got of these, because as soon as the above photo was taken a worker pulled up at the garage door and started screaming at someone on his cell phone. He was maybe 10 meters from us at his closest. We froze still, hoping he wouldn't notice us. Eventually he went around the wall of the garage entrance and we bolted out, leaving this building behind.
At some point on the trek back to the center, I grabbed a few more exteriors.
It was around this point that we finally found the hall of compressors we had been looking for.
I went up to the terrace to get a few shots of the whole hall looking down, when I noticed: the control panel was made of marble. I don't know about this area for sure, but control panels made of marble are extremely rare in the states. There are a tiny handful of power plants that have some, and I've found a couple in random other industrial spots that I keep to myself, but for the most part they are exceedingly rare. So I was thrilled to find one here, even if it was stripped.
Near the compressor hall, we found an extremely cramped room full of diesel engines and more compressors. It was extremely cool, albeit difficult to shoot.
At this point, we were beginning to feel as though we had seen "everything," and that maybe it was time to go. But something was gnawing at me. I felt as though there was maybe something more to see in the hydro power plant, perhaps deep beneath the surface.
So we decided to return, this time taking a wildly different route that let us see a few new angles from above.
This section was flooded but we got through by balancing on this tube. Somehow neither of us fell.
Eventually I made my way back to the giant generator at the end of the hall, and started climbing around inside of it
Around then I noticed that something interesting might be underneath it - but of course it was not accessible from here.
I exited and we decided to descend into the network of tunnels we found at the end of the preceding day, hoping they might lead to the space beneath the generator.
Eventually we made it to the goal - the giant, ancient hydro turbine sleeping underneath the generator. For whatever reason this is yet another incredible part of this complex no one bothers to photograph
At this point we were completely exhausted, and knew it was time to depart. Even though I spent nearly a dozen hours exploring this complex, I can't help but wonder about all the stuff we must have missed. No matter where we turned, this place had something extraordinary to offer, and worming my way through its expanses and crevices is an experience that will stick with me forever.
I hope you enjoyed this write-up! God knows I was indulgent with it ;)
order your copy of Access All Areas today!
