Back in the middle of April I finally got my chance to do something I've been meaning to do for a looooong time. About 45 minutes east of Denver is a tiny town called Deer Trail, and in the middle of this rural area is an abandoned Titan 1 missile silo. Missile silos are kind of hot spots out here, all the cool kids tell you about them and all the really cool kids have been to them. There's one up near Greeley that is preserved and can be toured, there's another north of Fort Collins that is owned by a data storage company. For the most part they are kept under lock and key, buried and welded shut. But the Deer Trail silo is pretty accessible - if you can your car parked in a location that won't lead cops or residents to think you're UrbExing nearby, and if you can make it to the silo and down into the pit without your flashlights being seen or without tripping and breaking your goddamn leg, you're golden.
So you get there, you get your gloves and coats and stuff, you tell your friends to shut the fuck up, and you walk to where one of the underground rooms was excavated because it was leaking something into the ground. Do you see the vertical shaft in the middle of the picture above, that's the service elevator. The big hole is pretty much right next to that. The hole hasn't been filled in, so it's just a matter of walking down this little cliff and entering the metal tunnel that connects to the rest of the complex. You enter right between the elevator and the power house.
This is pretty much the first thing you see:
This is where all the generators for powering the entire place were situated. Everything was mounted on springs on the floor, shock absorbers for obvious reasons. My pictures are pretty.... well they are super-novice. I just had a point-and-shoot and I used the flash so I could go home and see EVERYTHING that I could not see with the flashlight. I fully intend on revisiting and doing some more artful and realistic photography soon.
That said, you need to understand that, while exploring this place, I didn't see NEARLY as much as what is shown in the photos. It is darkness unlike anything you've ever experienced (unless you're a caver) and you only see what is right in front of you. Often, details will only be seen in your pictures, long after you've left.
Moving on, this is a large doorway that leads to the control center and tunnels connecting the silos themselves.
Shit, sorry, backtracking. This is the ceiling of the power house.
The elevator shaft. Probably the "cleanest" part of the entire complex, as it was used as recently as 10 years ago to get all the final shit cleaned out.
More connecting tunnels. These are sort of like KNEX junction pieces, joining several tunnels in one area. Diesel tanks and shit hanging from the ceiling. Who needs stalactites when you have rusty springs ready to stab you in the eyes?
Another view of the junction.
A burned couch. I don't know either. Could be original, or maybe someone was chilling down here?
This is what the majority of the silo becomes. Floor grates have been pulled, so you have to walk on the ground and hop over the empty supports. Like rusty, nasty hurdles. Or you can walk along the beams and risk slipping.
This is the part that REALLY SUCKS. Balancing acts over standing water. Not my favorite thing.
See, this is what I was talking about earlier. I had no idea what was written on that wall because I couldn't see it. I was just trying to take a picture of my friend because she got herself stuck way out away from the walls and was having trouble moving her feet.
When the ground isn't covered in wreckage, or several feet of standing water, it's covered with this.
Imma frow up.
Words of welcome.
Behold, one of the actual silos! That's about a 40 foot drop to the water and there's probably 70 feet of silo under that. This is the part that gives me nightmares when I'm wide awake - the notion of falling into that water (probably some fuel and other liquids in there, god how many visitors have peed in there?) and having to be in the cold darkness for an hour or more as your friends work their way back to the surface to call for help.
Looking straight across the silo.
Doors at the top, weighing about 115 tons each.
The Titan 1 missile system was kind of.... silly. We spent so much time and money on these silos and they were only operational for 3 to 5 years in the early 60s. They were super-inefficient, too. The missiles could not be fired from the silos - rather, the silos housed enormous elevators that raised the missile to the surface. The missiles couldn't be stored fueled, either. They had to be fueled, then raised, then fired. And only one could be fired and guided at a time. So these silos are much more massive than the Minuteman and Peacekeeper silos of the 70s and 80s.
This tunnel is supposed to be circular. But it's actually kind of oval-shaped. Because it's collapsing.
More giant, rusty doors.
The power house has a catwalk that runs the circumference of the dome, about 10 feet off the ground. This is the ladder/staircase that you use to get down to where the springs are.
This is us leaving. The opening to the silo is pretty barren, allowing dirt and weeds to blow in. Right now is when you realize that there should be rabbits or coyotes or snakes or something living in this silo, but that there isn't. There are no signs of droppings and there were no sounds to be heard the entire time we were down there. And that's pretty fucked up.
The trip was pretty safe, for the most part. There is no threat of radiation, there's tons of asbestos laying around but you don't have anything to worry about unless you go kicking through it or start doing lines of it or something. Radon? Yeah, probably a concern. The only danger you really have to worry about is tripping and falling on a rusty spike. Knocking your head on an exposed bolt or falling into water is going to make this a pretty awful experience.
So yeah. A pretty neat little trip, I think. I can't wait to go back and check out the antenna elevators and control center!
So you get there, you get your gloves and coats and stuff, you tell your friends to shut the fuck up, and you walk to where one of the underground rooms was excavated because it was leaking something into the ground. Do you see the vertical shaft in the middle of the picture above, that's the service elevator. The big hole is pretty much right next to that. The hole hasn't been filled in, so it's just a matter of walking down this little cliff and entering the metal tunnel that connects to the rest of the complex. You enter right between the elevator and the power house.
This is pretty much the first thing you see:
This is where all the generators for powering the entire place were situated. Everything was mounted on springs on the floor, shock absorbers for obvious reasons. My pictures are pretty.... well they are super-novice. I just had a point-and-shoot and I used the flash so I could go home and see EVERYTHING that I could not see with the flashlight. I fully intend on revisiting and doing some more artful and realistic photography soon.
That said, you need to understand that, while exploring this place, I didn't see NEARLY as much as what is shown in the photos. It is darkness unlike anything you've ever experienced (unless you're a caver) and you only see what is right in front of you. Often, details will only be seen in your pictures, long after you've left.
Moving on, this is a large doorway that leads to the control center and tunnels connecting the silos themselves.
Shit, sorry, backtracking. This is the ceiling of the power house.
The elevator shaft. Probably the "cleanest" part of the entire complex, as it was used as recently as 10 years ago to get all the final shit cleaned out.
More connecting tunnels. These are sort of like KNEX junction pieces, joining several tunnels in one area. Diesel tanks and shit hanging from the ceiling. Who needs stalactites when you have rusty springs ready to stab you in the eyes?
Another view of the junction.
A burned couch. I don't know either. Could be original, or maybe someone was chilling down here?
This is what the majority of the silo becomes. Floor grates have been pulled, so you have to walk on the ground and hop over the empty supports. Like rusty, nasty hurdles. Or you can walk along the beams and risk slipping.
This is the part that REALLY SUCKS. Balancing acts over standing water. Not my favorite thing.
See, this is what I was talking about earlier. I had no idea what was written on that wall because I couldn't see it. I was just trying to take a picture of my friend because she got herself stuck way out away from the walls and was having trouble moving her feet.
When the ground isn't covered in wreckage, or several feet of standing water, it's covered with this.
Imma frow up.
Words of welcome.
Behold, one of the actual silos! That's about a 40 foot drop to the water and there's probably 70 feet of silo under that. This is the part that gives me nightmares when I'm wide awake - the notion of falling into that water (probably some fuel and other liquids in there, god how many visitors have peed in there?) and having to be in the cold darkness for an hour or more as your friends work their way back to the surface to call for help.
Looking straight across the silo.
Doors at the top, weighing about 115 tons each.
The Titan 1 missile system was kind of.... silly. We spent so much time and money on these silos and they were only operational for 3 to 5 years in the early 60s. They were super-inefficient, too. The missiles could not be fired from the silos - rather, the silos housed enormous elevators that raised the missile to the surface. The missiles couldn't be stored fueled, either. They had to be fueled, then raised, then fired. And only one could be fired and guided at a time. So these silos are much more massive than the Minuteman and Peacekeeper silos of the 70s and 80s.
This tunnel is supposed to be circular. But it's actually kind of oval-shaped. Because it's collapsing.
More giant, rusty doors.
The power house has a catwalk that runs the circumference of the dome, about 10 feet off the ground. This is the ladder/staircase that you use to get down to where the springs are.
This is us leaving. The opening to the silo is pretty barren, allowing dirt and weeds to blow in. Right now is when you realize that there should be rabbits or coyotes or snakes or something living in this silo, but that there isn't. There are no signs of droppings and there were no sounds to be heard the entire time we were down there. And that's pretty fucked up.
The trip was pretty safe, for the most part. There is no threat of radiation, there's tons of asbestos laying around but you don't have anything to worry about unless you go kicking through it or start doing lines of it or something. Radon? Yeah, probably a concern. The only danger you really have to worry about is tripping and falling on a rusty spike. Knocking your head on an exposed bolt or falling into water is going to make this a pretty awful experience.
So yeah. A pretty neat little trip, I think. I can't wait to go back and check out the antenna elevators and control center!
