(watch your head)
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As you might have guessed, this drain is located at the top of a hill. When
we first got there, we had to scout around a bit on the surface to find the
right manhole entrance. Luckily, it was located off the side of the street,
so we parked the cars and stood around waiting for passing groups of dog walkers
to disperse. Despite the cold night, there was an annoying number of people
outside walking their dogs.
Finally, Stong, Anymouse, Kaos and I entered the manhole, descending down
a long shaft into a large RCP pipe. We'd come in the interest of finding out
if there was a cool drop structure of some sort that led from the top of the
hill down to the river, so we followed the water downstream. Stong had (foolishly)
decided not to wear his uber boots, and so spent the entire trip either doing
the splits or jumping from side to side in the round pipe.
Since we'd popped in close to the edge of the hill, we soon came to a nifty
little room where the water began its steep descent. The room was large, and
square-shaped, with bare concrete walls. A stepiron ladder led up to the ceiling,
but instead of a manhole, the opening in the concrete was covered by an immovable
steel plate. The floor of the room had a steep slope to it, leading into a
short (1200mm?) steel pipe.
Stong wanted to see what was down this little pipe, so he crawled into it.
The concrete on the side walls of the room was shaped sort of like benches,
so we sat down and waited while he went inside. Stong called to us that the
pipe was slippery and had a fair slope to it, and we suggested that he not
risk sliding all the way down. Stong came back up to the room we were in,
and then we all went back into the RCP to check out the rest of the drain
upstream.
We walked past several manhole shafts, and noticed that they were numbered,
with the numbers counting down as we went further upstream. The pipe eventually
shrank from a 2100 to an 1800, but we kept going. Anymouse and I spotted some
interesting items caught in the mud in the bottom of the drain- and old Mac's
video card, and a broken glass Crush bottle.
Oddly, there was a sewage pipe crossing the drain at the ceiling. We all ducked
under it, but joked that it was the perfect height to smack your head on.
We reached a square junction room where three small side pipes dumped in,
and the main line shrank to a 1650. There were nice benches to sit on, so
we lounged around here for a while. We turned off our lights and sat in the
darkness while we talked. I wish Edmonton drains had nice "chill rooms"
like this.
Then Stong wanted a photo of us in the junction room, so he stood up in the
RCP to get a shot. We watched him step back to get a wider angle, before suddenly
falling to the floor groaning in pain. He'd smacked his head on the exposed
sewer pipe.
After that, I ventured up the 1650 a little way to make sure we weren't missing
something cool. I reached another square junction chamber, but seeing that
the continuing pipe seemed to be half full of mud, I turned back.
After shooting a bunch of photos, we went back down the drain to our exit
point, and popped out into the night. The drain had no real outstanding features, and nobody could think of anything cool, so it has been left with a nice boring name.
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Kaos in the slide room, next to the RCP.
Anymouse, Stong and Kaos sit in the slide room.
The pipe goes from 2100 to 1800.
The chill room. Note the sewer pipe behind Anymouse's head.
I climbed into a manhole shaft and UEA posed in the drain.
Kaos climbs to the surface.