![]() ![]() “The purpose of this project is to provide a photojournalistic approach to document our dusty footprints where others can’t (or won’t) tread any longer,” Glass writes on his website. Experienced urban explorers talk enthusiastically about the thrill of walking over ground that hasn’t seen human visitors in years, not knowing what lies around every corner, and the rewarding challenge of figuring out how to get out.įor photographer Dan Glass, who runs the website, exploring caves and abandoned buildings is a way to document a city’s history. Those who are willing to risk both the heights and the claustrophobia of urban exploring are treated to rare sights. In some places, these tunnels are reportedly five stories deep and go on for miles. Paul with a vast network of underground caves and passages that include telephone, gas, and trolley lines dating back to the mid-1800s. Rather than bury our pipes, our city’s founders quickly discovered that it was actually easier to pickaxe their way through the stone. The Twin Cities, on the other hand, were settled on top of layers of soft sandstone, which is incredibly easy to excavate. cities, civil engineers dig trenches to hide the network of gas and water pipes that connect every building in their municipality. However, the Twin Cities have a few surprises hidden under their basements thanks to the sandstone where they reside. Europe with its millennia-old foundations and lenient trespassing laws is a more fertile landscape for the underground adventurer. The United States is far from an urban explorer’s paradise. Three hundred tea lights illuminate the “Rotunda” under the historic Schmidt Brewery in St. I think, the reason Action Squad became so popular was because Max Action was such a good writer.” Minnesota Gneiss There were a lot of different groups exploring the Cities at the time, and we all shared the desire to get into places that people just don’t normally go. “The site paints them as a group of people, but it was really just Max Action and whoever was available to go on a mission at the time. “Action Squad was just one man,” says one urban explorer known as Slim Jim, who preferred to not use his real name for this story. The site described the crew as a “constantly shifting team of adventurers.”īut “constantly shifting” may be the operative words. The squad itself consisted of a ragtag group of adventurers in their early to late 20s and ranged from conservatively-dressed law students to high school dropouts with mohawks. The squad would often consult maps and make backup plans in case someone got lost, caught, or injured. In order to access areas of the city isolated enough to take nudes, Action Squad had to plan accordingly, packing their bags with headlamps, ropes, and other tools to help them break into sealed areas. Of course, the site’s early popularity may have been due to Action Squad’s penchant for posting the nude photos they took while deep underground.Īgent Wop, Winger, and Nelson Mandolin of Action Squad enter the Lucky 13 Drain Mouth // Photo via Action Squad website After a few additional urban exploration expeditions, Max Action began documenting the Squad’s exploits online. ![]() After a night of drinking, the group decided to breach the steam tunnels rumored to exist under the campus. The group formed in late 1996 when a group of students at the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus grew bored of the traditional college bar scene and started looking for something more exciting. The ringleader for all of these adventures was a mysterious figure known only as Max Action. Any place that seemed like a challenge to get into was a potential target-particularly underground, abandoned, and historic sites. The squad’s site recounts its exploits: tales about scaling the sides of buildings, wading through waist deep sewage, rappelling hundreds of feet into unknown caverns, and dodging security cameras to sneak into abandoned sand mines. For almost a decade, the best-known urban exploration group in the Twin Cities was Action Squad. ![]()
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