(beautiful works of ice)
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Late on a cold, cold winter night, Agent Kaos led Anymouse and I to Charon's
Gates for a bit of draining. It was bitterly cold outside, and the rubber
of my boots froze stiff on the walk to the outfall.
There was a huge flock of ducks clustered in the creek water near the base
of the outfall, probably hundreds of birds, settling down for the night. When
we approached, the group stirred, and dozens of irritated birds took flight
and shifted down the creek with a great clamor of squaking and flapping wings.
Charon's Gates are a matching pair of small, square gates covering a couple
of small, square pipes. Luckily, one of the gates was unbolted, and swung
open easily. The pipe was a harsh backbreaker, probably a 1350, with a decent
amount of water flowing through it. Determined, we crouched down and entered
the pipe on the left- Kaos informed us that the pipes ran parallel to each
other for a ways, and that there was a window into the other pipe, in case
we wanted to cross over.
Not far inside, we came to the highlight of the night's trip. There was a
small staircase of four concrete steps, which would have been cool on their
own (I've never seen stairs in a drain before). But due to the freezing air
blowing in from the outfall, the water cascading over the steps had frozen
into beautiful formations. The ice flowed down from the walls and over the
steps without touching the steps themselves- allowing the water to flow behind
and between the layers of ice. It was a very beautiful little formation, and
my photos do not do it justice. Walking up the exposed center of the steps,
we were all careful not to kick through the frozen layers.
After the steps, the pipe took a slight turn and led us for another 50 meters
to a small junction room. Just before the room, there was a window into the
other pipe, but we chose to stick with the branch we were in. The room we
were in was fairly small, and the manhole at the top had been tarred shut.
The pipe made a 90 degree turn in this room, and we followed it up to a combination
manhole room/drop shaft. A duct, identical to the one we were in, dumped water
into the shaft several meters above. The ladder rungs were the old, single-hand
U shaped type, nice and rusty. But through the manhole above, the freezing
air had reached into the drain and once again given us a fantastic ice formation
to marvel at.
The water falling from the pipe up top had coated the ladder rungs, frozen
to them, and the ice thickened and oozed downward. The result was a huge rounded
mass of ice, coated with tiny ice bumps and water drops, that flowed down
the walls and off the ladder rungs.
I decided to risk the icy ladder, and managed to climb up into the pipe above
while Kaos and Anymouse waited below. The pipe above led a short way into
another dropshaft, which I also climbed. But it seemed this was a series of
small dropshafts, undoubtedly all just as icy and dangerous as the ones I'd
just climbed, so I decided to go back down.
From there, we all went back down the drain. Anymouse had enough, and headed
straight for the outfall exit. Kaos and I wanted to check out the opposing
pipe, but we came to a dropshaft that was filled with a waterfall. Getting
soaked, then going back into -20 weather didn't seem like a good idea, so
we turned around and headed out.
I got a couple photos on the way out through the outfall, and we checked the
path on the way back for manholes. Strangely, every storm manhole we found
was shut with a hinged locking bar and a padlock. And lastly, changing out
of my water-covered uber-boots back at the car, I realized they were frozen
stiff and they could stand up by themselves. Winter draining is definitely
a fun thing not to be missed.
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Kaos at the top of the ice stairs. This photo only shows a small part of the wicked ice formation.
Kaos again- this photo shows how short this drain is.
Kaos at the outfall gate.