Entrances/exits

The main entrance lies in the bowels of Med Center North not far from the Station 17 post office.  The tunnels can also be accessed from a manhole in front of the Black Cultural Center.  Due to its high visibility, however, this entrance is not recommended.  The third entrance to the tunnels is located in Sarratt Center near the arts studios. The door is sometimes locked and sometimes unlocked.  Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to the enter the tunnels here.  The door leads down a short passage that joins the tunnel to the Alumni Lawn dorms, but several pipes block the intersection.  We once managed to get a very slender guy through this junction by stuffing him through a gap between two pipes headfirst, but I would not recommend this technique.

Heat

The tunnels get extremely hot during the stretch from Med Center North to the power plant.  Don’t be fazed by the heat; just keep going and eventually things will cool down a bit.

Risk analysis

Probably the safest time to make a tunnel run is late on a Saturday or Sunday night.  Sometimes you will find a janitor or two near the tunnel entrance during the week, even late at night.  From past experience, these people can be safely ignored; they behave like zombies and usually won’t even take notice of you.

There is a security desk near the tunnel entrance, as remarked earlier.  Sometimes this desk is manned and sometimes it is not; I haven’t been past it enough to know when people will be there.  If you need to pass the desk, just walk past casually and pretend to be talking about sports or some other innocuous subject with your companions.  If there are any guards present, they most likely won’t give you a second glance.

In the lower levels of the Med Center, you will occasionally see semispherical mirrors on the walls.  Having seen a broken one before, I am convinced that none of them are used to conceal cameras.

Rumor has it that there is always at least one person in the power plant 24/7.  My friends and I have peeked up into the power plant a few times but not taken the risk to explore it more thoroughly.

Equipment

Flashlight - There are a few stretches where there are no overhead lights, and sometimes the overhead lights are switched off or are burnt out.

Chalk – to leave your mark on the tunnel walls.

Cellular phone or 2-way radio – just in case anything happens (hope you can get a signal)

A few points of interest

Gratings – there are a few large, open areas underneath Tolman Hall littered with various rubbish.  The most notable things about this area are the small gratings (see pictures) with views to the outside.  From the outside, you can observe these gratings along the base of Tolman.

Garland/Buttrick access – near the “Mad Mole” graffiti is a passage that lets you get into Garland Hall and Buttrick Hall.  This section requires some crawling and getting dirty, however.

Dress

I prefer a T-shirt, shorts, and old tennis shoes myself.  However, you will want to wear jeans if you plan to explore Garland and Buttrick since you’ll need to crawl through a pretty tight space.  It’s very hot in the tunnels, and extra clothing will make you miserable.  I have never encountered any hot pipes down there myself, but that’s not to say that there definitely aren’t any.  If in doubt, don’t touch.

Construction

Recently there has been construction work around the tunnels and the addition of new tunnels, though I have not had a chance to investigate this.  Two stories from the Vanderbilt Register mention the construction; check the links on the Literature page.