Fort Armistead Tunnels / Urbexing / Location Scouting

I've been looking for tunnels in the area for a while for a possible flick I'd like to shoot. I'd love for them to look like the tunnels in the remake of The Blob, or Them, or even the TV show Angel.

You know, sets. I don't have the time or money to build sets of that size and detail and the problem is that those sets were all built to look like sewers in Europe, not here.

Anyway, heard there were some tunnels at Fort Armistead and it's not very far out of my way so my brother(who's into photography) and me headed over there.

First thing you see is this:

Graffiti everywhere. Some of it's pretty good. Some of it's just insane.

Also, there's a number of older men just kind of roaming around here and there. Kind of weird. They didn't have cameras...

A younger guy comes up to us and says, "Come to check out my art, huh?" I ask him if he did it and he says some of it. He helpfully points us toward the tunnels, down the hill on the other side. We head down there and see this first:

btw, if you didn't know what urbexing is, it's short for Urban Exploring, which is a newish thing where people go to old, abandoned places and (typically) take pictures.

We find a tunnel quickly. It doesn't look inviting, I can tell you that. There's a spider the size of a half-dollar on the inside wall.

But hey, I'm here. I grab a stick to wave in front of me in case there are any invisible webs.

The inside of the tunnel is cluttered with bottles, cans, trash. Pretty gross. And graffiti is EVERYWHERE.

 Did I mention some of the graffiti is insane? I appreciate the sentiment but how do you misspell stab?

This is my brother in silhouette. I like how his headlamp's red beam turns him into a Terminator.

Now I'll tell you what's disturbing and should keep you away from here. Not only are there some large spiders, but as I commented on them my brother said..."I wouldn't look over your head if I were you."

Well of course I'm going to then. Do you know what camel crickets are? Some people call them spider crickets. These things make me very uneasy. I know they're harmless. But here's the thing:

THEY ARE ALL OVER THE CEILING. HUNDREDS OF THEM. AND ON THE WALLS. And they are HUGE, way bigger than I've ever seen. I'd guess around 3 inches long not counting legs.

It froze me for a good couple of seconds. I noticed though that they weren't moving. It's pretty clear they thought we couldn't see them, because they wouldn't move unless you got very close to them. So I didn't.

Because the tunnels were BLACK as night we were shooting with wide lenses so couldn't get any great pictures of them, but here's a couple.

I wish I'd had the balls to put my hand in there for scale but no way, no how. This is the wall. We couldn't get any good pics of the ceiling, but you can probably see them in some of the shots. Hey, don't believe me, head on out there. Enjoy.

We leave that section and move down a ways and there's ANOTHER entrance to...well, it's not quite a tunnel. It's more like a cave.

And did I mention? I totally forgot to bring my regular glasses. I'm in a fucking pitch black tunnel trying to take photos with my prescription sunglasses. That's not tough at all.

 Yep, graffiti. There's some blockish steps leading up somewhere...

 This is as high as I could get. I imagine a homeless person could sleep up there if they enjoy insects. (See those big black dots on the upper right white support? Camel crickets.

We leave that one and head farther down the outside and I see ANOTHER entrance.

So we head in there and it's very close to a carbon copy of the first tunnel section except there's more steel things in here(and one of the hanging things says HELL on it).

Notice the rusted hooks on the walls? Nice. It really is a shame this place is so nasty because you could certainly use this place as a set otherwise.

That's my brother. I told him to look mean. I think the crazy eyes is just his contribution. And yeah, it was really hot and humid in those tunnels. By the time we left our shirts were soaked.

So I'm thinking we've seen it all and then I see this:

 The least inviting entrance we've seen. And I'm thinking...if I left now I'd always wonder what was in there anyway...so I went in, got this next picture of my brother debating whether to follow me in or not.

 I could tell right away this one was laid out different than the other two. It opened into wider rooms instead of branching off to the sides. Also the floor was much more wet, very muddy in places.

 But yeah, more graffiti...everywhere...

 I mean yeah, it's bad, but Hell? It's not THAT bad...

Some of the graffiti was very cool looking...

There was another entrance up and out but you'd have to crawl to use it. We didn't take it.

Steps leading nowhere with a word on each step to form a sentence? Check.

So we left after that--it was the last entrance tunnel. We went up the steps on the other side. Here's the other side of the bridge over the tunnels.

Violent Delights Have Violent Ends. I don't know what it means. But someone also loves Joey so I think it all averages out, doesn't it?

 I do not know how you "Enter To Another World" through a hole this small...

This is the view from the parking lot. A very different view.

So anyway, not very hospitable for filming, at least not what I need it for. If it were only a page or two and I was shooting a found footage...maybe. But I'm not.

This is the video playlist of the videos we shot. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOR6v1Wb58Ykt0u2ZUgC_I_P1jxnqCXWc

My brother is getting me his photos, so I'll post them later.