The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Urban exploration in Arkansas
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Spinner
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The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by Spinner »

As promised in another thread, here's my one little adventure associated with the old Mountain Inn. Enjoy.


Spring 1999 – Fayetteville, Arkansas

In the early Spring of 1999, my roommate Jeff, his girlfriend, and our friend Larry were running around town in Larry’s late model Z/28 Camaro. It was a fast car with a 6-speed, aftermarket exhaust, a supercharger, and a heavy right foot at the helm. Well, the night was somewhat slow and the drag racing crowd dull, when all of a sudden, we passed by the Mountain Inn on College Avenue. Being somewhat nosy and adventurous, we thought out loud how fun it would be to go in and check things out in this big ass abandoned motel. Well, after some small talk and debating whether or not we should, all common sense and intelligence went out the window and we then decided “Hell yeah, let’s check it out!�.

Back to my house to grab a couple flashlights, we then proceeded to light the thrusters on Larry’s green rocket-ship and head back to the Mt. Inn. Now, if you have any recollection of this motel, you’ll remember the 7-story tall parking garage that was built along the south end of the building, had an entrance that came right off College Ave., and ran along E. Mountain St. Well, we decided we might as well park inside the parking deck (pay attention, this will be somewhat important later on in this story).

Now, my knowledge of this building was very limited. All I knew is that back in about 1991, I went to a big high school keg party there and saw people jumping into the rooftop pool and that as a former BMX racer, we used to use the parking garage to sprint up to make our legs stronger. Now, knowing just that little bit, I still knew more about the place than my three cohorts on this mission.

Well, we pulled off College Avenue and into the garage. Larry wisely spun the Z around and backed it in to a parking spot that pointed the nose of his car straight out of the garage. Once out of the car we went up the parking garage a few levels until we found an access door that opened. Holy shit, we were in.

It was dark. Real dark. So dark it was as if we had blindfolds on. So we turned on the flashlights and slowly made our way down this first hallway. Lots of graffiti, broken glasses, empty soda cans, trash. You know....your typical run down and abandoned motel. This went on for several hallways until we found a stairway (no power = no elevators) and went up a couple flights. We came out into a large room that resembled a big assembly room, with windows on the east side overlooking the pool that was a level below us. Well, Jeff being the way he is, he just HAD to see the pool. You know, big, empty and lots of trash is just how we like our pools here in Arkansas. Well, we scoped it out and nothing impressive.

Back into the building and down a flight of stairs. We were checking out the paintings on the walls and noticed that down toward the end of the hall was a dim light. Off went our flashlights. Real slow we walked down the hall, feeling the walls with our hands to guide us. From beneath one of the doors was light emitting from inside the room. We all stared at each other and remained as quiet as possible. Not only were we trespassing, but someone else was as well and they had power and lights and apparently heat judging by the warmth of the door. Not one bit of power anywhere in this monolith of a shithole, but this one room.

I got on one side of the door as Jeff, Larry, and Jeff’s girlfriend stood on the other side. We heard something. Quiet-like. A radio maybe, or a TV or someone mumbling. We couldn’t tell. We stood transfixed on this door for what seemed like an hour, but in reality was maybe just a minute or two. What I heard next was heart-stopping. It was a crash. A crash of broken glass and something big hitting a floor. What scared me was that it happened just behind Jeff’s side of the door. His girlfriend had accidentally backed up into an empty aquarium on a stand behind her. It went crashing to the floor in a heap. The three of them had eyes as big as I’ve ever seen. All at once, we made a mistake that put all four of our lives into a whirlwind of excitement, confusion, and possible danger. All three of them at once turned around and took off like rockets for their end of the hall. My choice, not to cross in front of the door, was to make a 180-degree turn and head the opposite direction as my friends. About five steps into my sprint, I heard the familiar sound of a door swinging open and a loud voice calling out, “Hey, come here!�.

Thankfully, I had a flashlight in my hand and made it to the end of the hall and into the stairwell where I jumped down multiple steps at once until I counted two full floors I had gone down. By my rough estimation, this would put me right around level two. I came out and into the hallway and sprinted much the way Forrest Gump did as rocks were being slung past his noggin.

Now, at this time in my life, I was in pretty damn good shape and could run pretty decent. But with the adrenaline flowing like a heroin in a rock star’s arm, my hands were already shaking by the time I got to the other end of the hallway and into the same stairwell Jeff and crew had gone into two levels above. I got in there and was as silent as possible to listen for any clues as to where my friends had gone. Nothing. It was dead quiet.

Okay, I’ve read some books regarding survival and escape during my very short tenure in the US Army as I was planning to attend SERE school after Ranger school (all that’s another story for another day) and knew I needed to keep moving. So I figured if I went UP a level and went back out and criss-crossed once more, my evasion would probably work. So I slowly and carefully went up one level and made it out into a hallway I hadn’t been in quite yet. I turned on my flashlight and crept down the hallway until I found a door that led to another hallway that went perpendicular to the one I was in. I took it and headed to the end. About halfway down I spotted a flashlight and heard voices. Sweet, I found my friends and we could get the F out of there.

“Hey, Jeff!� I yelled. I walked quicker in their direction and a split second after calling out for my friends, the flashlight turned toward me and a very unfamiliar voice replied with “Who’s Jeff and who are you???�. Shit, this ain’t good….. I made a 180 and took off at warp speed headed for the door I had just entered. Out the door I went and headed for the end stairwell and down I went. I went down as fast as my legs would allow me until there was nowhere left to go and estimated that I was either on the ground level or a level below that. I walked into what looked like an old cafeteria/kitchen. The smell was of old stale mildew and dust. I worked my way through the maze of tables and chairs and heard a noise behind me.

On all fours, I scurried like a rat across the floor and climbed inside a cabinet and tried with all my might to keep calm. Breathe deep I told myself. My hands, still shaking, held onto my light and I waited for nearly an eternity before climbing back out of the cabinet. It was quiet. I took off and headed for an old exit sign hanging above a broken door and went up the stairs directly to the left and out the door to my left about halfway down the little cramped hallway.

Bingo! I was in the parking garage and the green Z/28 was right in front of me. Like magic, the car fired up and the trio of buddies were screaming for me to get in. I hopped in and no more than had the door shut and Larry had his foot shoved nearly through the floorboard beneath the gas pedal as his car roared out of the parking garage and onto College Avenue. Not even looking for traffic, Larry flogged that car as if it were a horse attempting to win the Triple Crown. We got out up the road at a fast food place, we were all breathing as if we had just ran the Boston Marathon in record time, and we didn’t talk for several minutes. All four of us truly were frightened for what we had gone through in about 20 minutes of time.

We were lucky.

Some several days after this happened, I was at the local bicycle shop picking up a couple parts when in walked two of my friends who worked with the Fayetteville PD as bicycle cops. I told them the whole story. They of course told me I was an idiot and that trespassing was illegal and not to go in there ever again. Ever. Apparently a lot of meth heads had meth labs hidden in rooms in the upper floors. They probably would’ve killed us to hide their makeshift pharmaceutical labs where they stirred their chemicals and made their poison they sold to other meth heads.

To this day, that’s been one of the wildest times of my life.
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White Rabbit
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Re: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by White Rabbit »

That's an awesome story. I love stuff like that.
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Re: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by GlassCurtain »

Hell yeah bud! Nice read. I go exploring out of curiousity and adrenaline. That what's it all about!

BTW, welcome to the forums.
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Re: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by anarchy_in_the_uk »

:shock:


loved the story.
Willard
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RE: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by Willard »

I'm guessing the fact that the building had several meth labs in it is more the main reason why it got torn down... you can't ever get rid of the toxic residu from that shit... fuckers... meth freaks are going to be the next reason why so many old buildings and houses are gonna get destroied. Fuckin' they should all get shot.
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Re: RE: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by anarchy_in_the_uk »

Willard wrote:I'm guessing the fact that the building had several meth labs in it is more the main reason why it got torn down... you can't ever get rid of the toxic residu from that shit... fuckers... meth freaks are going to be the next reason why so many old buildings and houses are gonna get destroied. Fuckin' they should all get shot.
That's exactly right. It would always smell like shit
man you can never get rid of that smell
:x
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RE: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by Willard »

Would it be bad if I started wipeing out people who had meth labs?
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Re: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by ropingk »

I'd say go for it but you might want to go heavly armed :shock:
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Re: The Mountain Inn in Fayetteville (Long read)

Post by Willard »

ropingk wrote:I'd say go for it but you might want to go heavly armed :shock:
Not a problem :twisted:
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