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Today I drove 54 miles with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vixyish, corivax and plantae to walk 4.6 miles underground. The Snoqualmie Tunnel, part of the Iron Horse trail, is 2.3 miles of decommissioned railroad tunnel. Inside is a lot of dark, cold, and wet. And horse manure, which is particularly annoying given the dark part.
The entrance is a short walk from the parking lot. Walking under the arch into the darkness is sobering. This was the last thing we saw heading into the tunnel, soon replaced with this.
It is, of course, quite dark inside. We brought plenty of flashlights, all of which were used at first. But as the entrance disappeared around a corner, leaving only a keyhole of light from the exit ahead, we gradually turned off all but one by some unspoken agreement. The thought of being stuck in there with dead batteries was hanging pretty heavily over us. Getting used to following a small patch of bouncing. yellowish light took some time. We eventually fell into a nice rhythm, walking mostly in silence, occasionally stopping to look at anything that caught our eyes. After that much nothing, pretty much anything did.
A bit after the midpoint we started to hear an odd rumbling up ahead. After the obligatory jokes about sleeping dragons, we decided that it was horses. As it got closer, we started to think it might be a wagon. At this point we could see by their lights that they had stopped. There is something very primeval about being under a mountain, at least a mile from help in either direction, wondering what the clanking noise up ahead is. A voice called out to us, asking if we were pedestrians or cyclists. It explained that we needed to keep our flashlights pointed at the ground as we passed, so we wouldn't spook the horses. Carefully approaching, we saw a large wagon with several passengers, drawn by two horses. Behind it were another four horses, each with a rider. All were dressed in slightly exaggeratedly historical western garb. The man explained that the horses were from France, the kind that used to carry knights. He kept up a constant stream of verbiage as we carefully edged by them. They started up again and rode off, the clopping and talking slowly fading into the darkness. In just about every way, it was one of the more fictional moment of my life.
The other side is just more trail, with various odd bits of rail debris scattered around. Nothing else to do, we turned around and walked back.
I'd really like to bike up there some day. The greater Iron Horse trail system is a popular destination for Seattle area cyclists. A lot of the pages I've found talking about it mention cyclists going through the tunnel without headlights, which seems pretty insane to me. However, walking through without lights could be interesting. Particularly if you enforce the whole 'don't look back' thing...
vixyish, corivax and plantae to walk 4.6 miles underground. The Snoqualmie Tunnel, part of the Iron Horse trail, is 2.3 miles of decommissioned railroad tunnel. Inside is a lot of dark, cold, and wet. And horse manure, which is particularly annoying given the dark part.
The entrance is a short walk from the parking lot. Walking under the arch into the darkness is sobering. This was the last thing we saw heading into the tunnel, soon replaced with this.
It is, of course, quite dark inside. We brought plenty of flashlights, all of which were used at first. But as the entrance disappeared around a corner, leaving only a keyhole of light from the exit ahead, we gradually turned off all but one by some unspoken agreement. The thought of being stuck in there with dead batteries was hanging pretty heavily over us. Getting used to following a small patch of bouncing. yellowish light took some time. We eventually fell into a nice rhythm, walking mostly in silence, occasionally stopping to look at anything that caught our eyes. After that much nothing, pretty much anything did.
A bit after the midpoint we started to hear an odd rumbling up ahead. After the obligatory jokes about sleeping dragons, we decided that it was horses. As it got closer, we started to think it might be a wagon. At this point we could see by their lights that they had stopped. There is something very primeval about being under a mountain, at least a mile from help in either direction, wondering what the clanking noise up ahead is. A voice called out to us, asking if we were pedestrians or cyclists. It explained that we needed to keep our flashlights pointed at the ground as we passed, so we wouldn't spook the horses. Carefully approaching, we saw a large wagon with several passengers, drawn by two horses. Behind it were another four horses, each with a rider. All were dressed in slightly exaggeratedly historical western garb. The man explained that the horses were from France, the kind that used to carry knights. He kept up a constant stream of verbiage as we carefully edged by them. They started up again and rode off, the clopping and talking slowly fading into the darkness. In just about every way, it was one of the more fictional moment of my life.
The other side is just more trail, with various odd bits of rail debris scattered around. Nothing else to do, we turned around and walked back.
I'd really like to bike up there some day. The greater Iron Horse trail system is a popular destination for Seattle area cyclists. A lot of the pages I've found talking about it mention cyclists going through the tunnel without headlights, which seems pretty insane to me. However, walking through without lights could be interesting. Particularly if you enforce the whole 'don't look back' thing...
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On the way "in", I was amazed at how perfectly straight the tunnel was. I wouldn't have guessed that you could see both entrances from anywhere in the tunnel. When I crouched low, the floor of the tunnel seemed to come up and block off the light from the other entrance, and at the time I worked out how much curvature of the earth there would be in that distance. I forget the figure now, but I imagine the Iron Goat tunnel at steven's pass is even more pronounced that way.
On the other side, there sure isn't much! I clibed around a bit, managed to drop the flashlight, and break the bulb. So my return trip was entirely in the dark.
I've heard about and seen people who would spend a day with a blindfold on, to imagine what blindness is like. Somehow I don't think it can be that scary, especially when you know you can take the blindfold off at any time. I wasn't frightened by the walk, but it was annoying, the few showers I couldn't avoid walking through.
I am now fascinated by these railroad tunnels. I'd love to create some sort of ritual in one, maybe incorporating phosporescence and helium balloons. I wonder if the direction of the wind changes over the course of the day?