Davern Drain Revisited

Hey fellow explorers, both armchair and actual!

Me, Rooster and Jacques took a quick jaunt down to Davern Drain the other day to fill our thirst for underground exploring. Neither Roo nor Jacques had been down to D's Drain, and since my batteries ran out the last time I had been there, I figured it'd be good to snap a few good photos.

We had previously tried to get in a week or two prior, but the constant rains had made the water level so high that access was impossible. The second time proved to be be the charm, and we hopped in after some tricky maneuvers around the still-deep puddle of water at the base of a ladder into a round tunnel.

We knew Davern Drain has a much more extensive second tunnel going off to the left, but the deep water and our total lack of appropriate footwear dissuaded us from exploring the deeper, longer and much older parts of this cool-ass drain. So, shoes first, we plunged into the RCP, headed under the West Seventh district.


After passing through some shindeep pools, we entered the triangular section of the tunnel which sets Davern Drain apart from all the other drains in the Twin Cities. The teardrop/triangular shape is fun to walk through and looks very cool.


We saw some weird fluffy thing laying in the tunnel. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be some very strange kind of mold formation and it squished slightly under my shoe. Weird.


A medium length jaunt through the Trinagular drain ended at the coolest part of Davern Drain: the Atrium. The Atrium, as detailed in our last post on Davern Drain, is a huuge open "room" under some intersection. I'm really bad at guessing distances, but it must be at least over 15 feet high and a good 30 to 40 feet long. The Atrium is a great change from the semi-claustraphobia enducing tunnels underground.... the cielings are high, a breeze is always bringing fresh air from the grate above and a good sized waterfall is constantly pouring down from the upper drain levels.


I like it down there. A lot.


We headed back out and used a side entrance to climb out of the drain in order to escape further foot wetting. We pried open a manhole and scurried away into the woods.


Phalen is next, we only need nice boots. Stay tuned!

-GoxKok