Spricket Drain, Pt. 2

 Later today I retraced my steps up to the 2nd junction room (pictured left) in the Spricket Drain, and continued at a 90 degree left turn. I have never seen so many camel spiders in one place before. This drain is definitely not for the meek or weak, as the pipe never gets any bigger along the way and there are insects and spiders EVERYWHERE on the pipe.  I come across a smaller drainpipe that water is spilling out of at random intervals. It sounded pretty creepy at first when I had just entered the second room. Going further, there's a rusty grate that is full of dried leaves. Beyond that is the third junction room.

Here I have reached the third junction room. The only other exit (besides the manhole) is a 90 degree turn back to the right. 2 Rusty pipes run through the cinderblock room.

In one corner is a substantial amount of varmint scat...I'd say it was a raccoon (there were small paw prints all along the middle of the pipes). Got my pepper spray handy this time ;)

Moving onward, the RCP passageway looks very much the same as the entrance portion. There aren't as many bugs on the ceiling by now. Pretty soon it becomes difficult to walk stooped over without shredding my backpack on the ceiling, so from here on it's down on all fours.

 I reach a couple of small junction points where I can stand up. These locations have manhole covers, and I can see and hear cars passing by (I was peeking through the storm gutter opening). Nothing too special, but good to know that I have alternative exits.

I soon reached an imperfect RCP junction where I had to take my backpack off in order to crawl through. I sat up in a 3 foot RCP and was unable to walk on all fours without scraping my pack. At this point, I didn't see or hear anything of interest up ahead and decided to head back to base.

I returned to one of the previous storm gutter rooms and slid the manhole cover open. I wasn't using common sense and I got showered with rust, dirt, and a small puddle of freezing cold water. Awesome. Tossing my pack out of the opening, I lifted myself out of the shallow gutter and returned to the aboveground world in my neighborhood. I estimated the distance between the drain entrance and where I had exited to be about 1.5 city blocks, meaning that with the two 90 degree turns my total distance was probably closer to 3 city blocks. It felt like I had traveled easily twice that distance. I guess now I know how quickly one's sense of time and distance can be distorted underground. I glanced at my watch, and I had not even been away from home 45 minutes! This concludes my documentation of the Spricket Drain.