River des peres tunnels under forest park

[cherry63376]

Has anyone been in the river des peres tunnels under forest park. The exit is at Mackland and Manchester. The tunnels murge at the fish hatchery near the muny and the entry is at Kingsland and Chamberlain. It also runs in front of the history museum. I have been in this tunnel at all three locations but have no pictures.

[memory_machine]

I've been into the outfalls at Manchester, but turned around because I didn't have sufficient wading boots. It's a combined stormwater / sanitary sewer system, so I didn't exactly want to go stepping in the water.

I looked at an ariel of Kingsland and Chamberlain and don't see an obvious entrance. Is there a manhole or grate or something?

[cherry63376]

between champerlain and olive you see a creek that ends half way to olive. It is about four buildings East of Kingsland. The creek is the start of river des peres and it goes under ground there to begin its journey to forest park. At the fish hatchery there is an access grate. At this grate the one tunnel turns into two running side by side. These two tunnels end at mackland and manchester where you can see how big these tunnels are.

[Chris]

I haven't walked it, but I sure intend to.

I have, on the other hand, walked the smaller tunnel on the right for probably over a half a mile.

It goes up an incline, makes a right turn, and turns into a brick tunnel. The air grows quite heavy and I do beleive it's sewage, not stormwater running down the middle. We went and far as we could without walking through a heavy streams of sewage spewing from to smaller interecting pipes. It dosen't follow the same course as the two actual river Des Peres tunnels.

There are two or three other very large tunnels that dump into the river channel, but the often have their large steel doors shut.

I've been wanting to walk the River Des Peres tunnels for a long, long time. It's just one of those things we've never gotten around to.

ETA:

I see the short section of open channel you're referring to! that would make the tunnel at least twice as long as I originally thought. Something like this:



Pretty intense. I can't wait to see this thing.

[sakernzl]

I am currently filming a documentary on River Des Peres for HEC-TV and University City. One of the features we'd like to put in the film involves (I imagine) several of the individuals on this forum.

If it is possible I'd like to get a few of you guys to escort a film crew into the tunnels under RDP. We can discuss this in more detail if you are interested.

By the way, the title of the movie is "A Sewer Runs Through It".

Thanks
Jamie

[Blade Runner]

Its just a tunnel, I don't know if you'd need people to show you around, unless an element of your documentary is urban explorers.
The des peres tunnels are just a glorified sewer anyway, after 2 miles they get really boring.
My advice is wait until it gets cold, because right now those tunnels are going to smell absolutely putrid.

[sakernzl]

Thanks for your reply. We would like to use urban exploration as an element of the story. We are trying to add more interesting stuff (rather than the usual historical narrative) to the documentary. We would be very interested in having a few individuals from this forum take us down there, describe why you like exploring these tunnels, etc. We think that people would find the story interesting. So, if any of you are interested, please let me know. That would be much better than simply showing footage of the tunnels.

[Chris]

I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I really don't think any of us have been through the tunnels.

Like Blade Runner says, they're combined sewers. The air is so bad that it's pretty much impossible to breathe even right at
the outfalls 95% of the time. Every time a group I'm with have attempted it, we decided not to. I doubt we'll ever get around to it. The air is just too bad and there are better things to see in town.

[Blade Runner]

We went into the far right one once and walked about 2 miles (we think we stopped under forest park somewhere) and then turned back...we weren't sure how much flashlight power we had left. After about 1/2 mile the tunnel goes from paved to brick, but the whole time you're walking at an angle to keep from walking in the sewage river...and you slip a lot...its also not very assuring when you see that the waterline was recently above your head.
If you go in, make sure there isn't rain in the forecast, even if its a day away, don't risk it.
Occasionally a train rumbles above you and it sounds cool, other than that, it was pretty boring.
Someone on here had some pics up once if his trek all the way to a finish where steps led up to a locked grate, idk who it was though.

[Chris]

That's the one we went into. (we being me, tunajive, and his friend, but they don't post here much any more).

I don't think it follows the course of the other two tunnels for very long and don't think it makes it under forest park. It dosen't serve the same purpose as the other two tunnels - placing the actual original River Des Peres underground. I think it may run under Manchester or some other east-west street in the area.

The brick construction was interesting, but as you said, you're constantly trying not to slip and fall into the fecalness. Gross.

ETA:

viewtopic.php?t=1812&highlight=river+des+peres

Here's a link to our original epic adventure into that tunnel. I mention a second gentle curve to the right. Note the gentle curve to the right in Manchester road.

I bet it does run under Manchester or at least runs parrellel to it.

[sakernzl]

Thanks for the info everybody. We are looking for some sort of human interest type of story to add something lighthearted to the relative seriousness of the movie. I need to talk to the producer to see if he wants to continue with this aspect of the documentary. It sounds like we'd need to head down there when it cools off a bit anyway (to avoid the stench). So, I might check back with this forum a little later after we've decided what to do. Thanks again.