Bit of Background
"MoleNet" was the name adopted by a group of urban explorers who
entered and mapped the Washington State University utility tunnels between
September of 1994 and February of 1997. "Mole", of course, refers to the tiny
animal which digs tunnels underground. "Net" is radio jargon for a group of
radio operators chatting on the air. We often had several people underground and
several people on the surface, all on radios, talking to each other about where
we were, etc. Often, the people on the surface were directed to stomp on manhole
covers so that both teams could correlate positions. This practice ceased after
we'd explored all the main routes and gained a fair intuition for where we were
(probably mid-1995). After this, we tended to go after specific things, like
entry into basements we hadn't seen, or into new stretches of tunnel, e.g., the
then-new tunnel to the then-new Veterinary Teaching Hospital off Grimes Way.
Overall, we probably made 30 or so trips into the tunnels, most in the wee hours
of Saturday mornings, when we figured would-be tunnel cops were certain to be on
Greek Row dealing with drunks.
The MoleNet was purely interested in seeing seldom-seen sights, and is proud to
say that we never took anything, never vandalized anything, etc. Well, ok, I
have to be completely honest: We *did* write "MoleNet" on the wall of the tunnel
just east of Daggy Hall using a piece of blue chalk. Not spray paint. As far as
I know, that is the only semi-lasting impression we left on the tunnel system,
and it may even be gone by now. Judging by the amount of graffiti we
encountered, it was clear that others *had* been there before us, but not all
that often. I have yet to encounter any evidence of these prior visitors on the
internet. Who are you? I'd love to know! The most oft-seen tag was "Black Flag",
suggesting that punks (or more specifically, fans of the punk band Black Flag)
had been there. We also saw evidence that the Chinook (yearbook) staff had been
there, as well as an assortment of shy political activists (one tag read,
"Reagan Sucks!").
At one point, I had plans for a grand MoleNet web site, but I've since lost
steam (pun intended). Nevertheless, as the climate post-9/11 seems ill-suited to
college tunneling, I feel obligated to share a few images of our exploits, out
of hope that others might live vicariously through our experiences instead of
getting expelled from school. Enjoy, and Safe UE'ing to you!
Best Regards,
--MoleNet94
The Map
Here is a map of the WSU utility tunnels, compiled from several hand-drawn maps:
http://silicon-arcana.com/molenet/data/map.gif
(recommend opening in a new window)
Often times we would consult and update our maps while underground, but many updates were also made after we'd exited. As a result, some portions of the map are of questionable accuracy, and I have tried to recall these locations and point them out with question marks. I also added numbered points of interest. Here are the descriptions:
Points of Interest on the Map:
This is the cold water return line where the used-up steam
returns to the power plant to be recharged for another journey around
campus. The pipes are relatively small and the atmosphere is pleasant,
thermally speaking. Very quiet, too. This also appears to be where the phone
and cable service enter campus. Just off the northwest corner of Albrook, a
waterfall of black cables pours from a hole in the north wall of the tunnel
and heads uphill toward the center of campus. This tunnel also supplies
power to the President's House, according to handwritten notes on one of the
feeder junction boxes. University power: Another benefit of the presidency.
There are no tunnels connecting to the President's House, however. If I
lived there, I'd have some added! :)
College Avenue south of the power plant is (or was before
the new steam plant on Grimes Way went up) the hottest place in the tunnels.
The steam pipes are enormous, and there are so many of them that two tunnels
run side-by-side up the hill, reuniting just south of Carpenter Hall.
Unbearable heat and several locked gates kept us from getting a very good
look at the tunnel where it connected to the power plant, so that portion of
the map is somewhat speculative in nature.
Asbestos Alley. The WSU asbestos report (need to find the
link again) indicates specific pipes in the tunnel between McCroskey and
Honors (formerly White) Halls are insulated with 100% asbestos. I don't
recall breathing especially deeply when we walked through here, so hopefully
I'm ok! We periodically wore dust masks, but they were hot and annoying. The
tunnel into the east side of Honors was flooded every time we visited, so we
never actually made it into the building. Note: I have no
reason to believe the tunnel system isn't totally full of asbestos.
This just happens to be one of the locations sampled for the asbestos study.
Underneath the senior bench in the field just west of Bryan
Hall is a fairly large room. Offshooting are three rather ugly-looking
crawlspaces full of deteriorating pipe insulation that, given its obvious
age, is probably asbestos. I marked them "navigable" on the map, however
none of us ever felt like getting dirty enough to see exactly where they
went. The destinations on the map represent our educated guesses. I'm pretty
sure they're correct.
Just off the south corner of the Bookstore (SBC) is a really
tight squeeze. You have to turn sideways and sidestep your way down the hill
toward Wilmer and Davis halls. The squeeze lasts about 50 or 60 feet, if I
recall correctly. When traveling from one side of campus to the other, we
often took the southern route (College Ave to Stadium Way) for this very
reason. The tunnel near SBC was quite uncomfortable, especially for a
bigger, taller guy like me!
Pet Cemetery. This is one of the spookiest experiences I had
while tunneling: In early 1995, we first visited the tunnel that runs past
the south end of Murrow (north end of Eastlick) and up to College Hall. Just
off the southwest corner of College, the tunnel is reduced almost to a
crawlspace. Shining our flashlights ahead, we saw the eyes of a cat glowing
in the darkness. "Weird," I thought. "Wonder how he got down here?" It must
have been close to a year later that we returned with a mind to check out
the crawlspace again. As soon as we turned off Veterans Way up toward
Murrow, I noticed something on the ground. It took a moment for me to
realize what it was: Cat fur. Not surprisingly, the well-dried corpse of a
cat lay just east of Murrow. The nearby blower had spread its fur all over
the place. Eeww! Stranger still, as we approached College Hall, we
encountered two more dead cats. How did these cats get down here? We wonder
to this day. Did somebody put them down here to die, or what? How terrible!
The thought of crawling through cat fur and encountering still more cat
corpses kept us from exploring the crawlspace behind College Hall that
evening. On a subsequent trip (captured on video), a steam leak kept us
away. We never saw exactly where that crawlspace went, but assumed it led
into the basement of College Hall. It runs at least to the southeast corner
of College, since there is a grate on the sidewalk there.
The basements of Todd and Fulmer halls are massive,
accessible from the tunnel under Terrell Mall to the north. To get into the
basement of Todd, one must climb 30 feet down a shaft while enduring thermal
wind and nearly unbearable heat (especially in the summer). The basement had
some wide open spaces in it at the time, and on one visit we hijacked some
surplus office chairs and had fun racing around on them in near total
darkness :)
Bomb Shelter. Underneath Bohler Gym is a bomb shelter. The
approach requires climbing down another 30-foot shaft, which looks like it's
ready to collapse! Sometime (in late 1996, I believe), a steam pipe broke in
the ground just off the east end of the tunnel here (the pipes presumably
run to the old Fieldhouse, but not through a tunnel). We saw the steam
rising from cracks in the sidewalk one afternoon, and decided we needed to
see what things looked like underground, too! :) Upon reaching the shaft
into Bohler, we were confronted by a waterfall of boiling water pouring from
the wall down the shaft and into the Bohler basement. What a mess! Chunks of
deep-fried cement were everywhere. We didn't stick around for long, however,
for fear of being deep-fried ourselves!
The tunnel running from Grimes Way out to the Veterinary
Teaching Hospital is one of the newer stretches, built during our stay at
WSU. The approach was a bit treacherous at the time, requiring the tunneler
to straddle an uninsulated steam pipe for a few seconds. Naturally, we all
enjoyed spitting on the pipe and watching our spit sizzle away and vanish.
On our first visit, the new hospital was only a foundation, and upon
emerging from the tunnel we could look right up at the night sky!
The eastern extreme of Grimes Way is (or was) also the eastern extreme of the tunnels. The approach was long and boring, so consequently we didn't go out that way much. At the end, the steam pipes entered a small gated chamber full of machinery. Looked like something had gone terribly wrong, however; the machinery had obviously malfunctioned and exploded! There were pieces all over the place. Apparently, the solution was just to shut off the steam and walk away. It was in this condition for years! Sigh...the quality of the maintenance (or lack thereof) will always be remembered. On our first visit, I recall that we boldly switched on the lights each time we encountered a light switch. We soon noticed, however, that the lights were getting dimmer and dimmer each time. Apparently, the whole stretch of Grimes Way is funneled into a single circuit! So, not wanting to burn up any electrical wiring, we cut back to flashlights and made sure to turn off the lights on the way back.
Other Amusements and Stories (will add to this list as I remember things):
The Pissing Pipe. At the intersection of College Ave and
Stadium Way was the "pissing pipe." The steam lines enter a mass of twisted
pipes and valves. Among the many that emerge, one particularly small pipe
runs down the wall, across the floor, and up the other side (then off to God
knows where). In late 1994 and early 1995, this pipe was in desperate need
of repair. The part of the pipe that crossed the tunnel floor was severely
corroded to the point that a small hole had developed. From this hole, a
spout of boiling water would periodically rise, sometimes reaching the
ceiling! Between these, one had barely enough time to sprint past. It was
like something out of a video game! :) By mid 1995, the pipe had been
repaired and the pissing ceased. Consequently, the decision to cross campus
via the College Ave-to-Stadium Way connection was made much easier, and we
often took friends on tours that spanned the entire tunnel system
east-to-west (or vice versa).
The Comm Tunnels. The early days of the "C.I.R." (Communications Infrastructure Renewal) Project in 1994 and -95 saw I.T. guys stringing cables all over campus. There was a lot of activity in the tunnels. Also commonplace during this time was the sight of open "Communications" or "Comm" manholes. These manholes, the massive covers to which would deny entry to all but the most determined explorers (including us), appeared at first glance to lead to tunnels. This spawned a fleeting belief in "Comm Tunnels", or short sections of tunnel isolated from the rest of the system and possibly further underground. One of these Comm manholes was in the street just west of Waller hall. In our first visit to the tunnel just north of the Hospital, our progress was halted by a gate. Some distance ahead, we could make out a right-hand turn in the tunnel. Grossly overestimating the distance to the turn, we began to wonder if this gated tunnel led to the Comm Tunnels out in front of Waller. On a subsequent visit, we found the gate unlocked, and ultimately discovered that the tunnel ran to the Hospital. Later, a particularly good look at an open Comm manhole revealed that it led to a small chamber full of wires and junction boxes. These discoveries together effectively ended the belief in "Comm Tunnels", yet the possibility of isolated sections of tunnel remained tantalizing.
Strange Gravity Experiments Under Eastlick? The basement of Eastlick Hall, reached via an offshoot of the Veterans Way tunnel just to the west, was usually locked. In fact, it was only ever found unlocked one time during the 2-1/2 years we were tunneling. Standard Operating Procedure was to send somebody down to the basement door as we passed the turnoff to see if, by some miracle, it was unlocked. I suppose it just seemed strange to us that this one basement would be locked up when most others were wide open (or always unlocked), including I.T.! Well...I forget who had Eastlick Duty that night...I even forget what night it was! But one night, the door was actually unlocked! I suspect that whoever visited the door and called back, "It's open!" was immediately accused of lying, but anyway... So we all filed in and realized that we were standing on a ledge up near the ceiling of a cavernous chamber. There was a metal ladder plummeting into the darkness, so down we all went! When we'd reached the floor and started looking around, it became apparent that this space was being used as some kind of lab. The only part I remember really well was that there was an elevator shaft that was not being used for an elevator. Rather, it appeared to be set up as some kind of "drop lab". That is, it appeared that things were being dropped down the shaft and recorded for some strange experiment. The shaft was utterly void of elevator machinery, and was instead full of video cameras! When I spotted the first camera, I remember jumping back whispering (loudly), "Shit! Shit!!" But then sense took me. Why would they be filming utter blackness all night long in the basement of a building? We continued to look around, having dismissed the concern that we were being captured on tape. I wish I'd taken better mental notes of what else was down there, but suffice it to say, it was not your average basement.
Pictures
I'll make a gallery soon. In the meantime, a bunch of photos are sitting loose in here: http://silicon-arcana.com/molenet/data
Videos
I strongly urge anyone wanting to view these videos to right-click and choose "Save Target As..." (or whatever your browser calls it) to download the files to your local hard disk before trying to view them. Simply clicking the links below will probably cause your media player to pop up and try to play the video while it's downloading, and the experience is likely to be choppy and disappointing. The files are in Windows Media Player format, which I've found looks much better than MPEG for any given bitrate.
Contacts, etc.
Catch MoleNet94 on UER/Infiltration, or mail me. Do not ask how to get into the tunnels. I do welcome any corrections to my map, tales of recent or prior visits to the tunnels, etc.
Page updated: 02/13/2006
