Tall Tales from the Underground

A compendium article to the original story by Ping! in 2016. Lots more info about the Tempe Underground Full Pipe

Props to Rob Locker, Brian Brannon, Steve Pingleton, Joey Albillar, and Shawn Dutton

Soul of Skateboarding

Skateboarding wasn’t always about the local skatepark or the X-games. The heart and soul of skateboarding was, and still is for many, about finding and skating something that’s different, challenging and not made for skateboarding. If you’re reading this, I assume you have the bug too,  always looking at literally ANYTHING and wondering if it’s skateable.  Prior to recent skateparks, kids would roll around on their skateboards in and on the streets, pools, curbs, ledges, handrails, drainage ditches, pipes or anything with a smooth surface. Now, virtually ALL skateparks emulate these fundamental terrains that were originally designed for completely other uses, like cars, pedestrians, water retention/drainage/delivery, recreational swimming etc. There was one particular terrain that caught my attention at an early age. In the 70’s, skateboarding in large, cylindrical concrete pipes was made famous by Skateboarder magazine (PIC 1 –  Skateboarder April 1977), with full page photos of those intrepid skaters from those days like Gregg Weaver or Rick Blackhart. Images of these giant monoliths in the barren Arizona desert with seemingly ant sized skateboarders at 10:30 are forever etched in my mind.  Steve (Ping!) Pingleton has a great collection of photos here (PIC 2 – Hassayampa Photo: Steve Pingleton). These old, classic images spawned the building of pipes in skateparks in the late 70’s like Upland Pipeline in California (actually co-inspired by the another type of pipe, the Baldy pipeline), or High Roller Skateboard Park right here in Phoenix, Arizona (PIC 3 – The High Roller Full Pipe. Photo: Joe Albillar). These images, and early skateparks with full pipes started an underground movement of sorts of skaters craving a new, (sub)terrain to skate.

While those early color photos graced the magazines and inspired a new skateboarding terrain, not much glory was given to those hidden gems once they found their final resting place buried underground. Many of the images taken of these buried pipes don’t exactly catch your eye like those photos of pipes when they are in full sun.  The photos are usually dark, grainy, low light pics of flash blasted skaters. These images weren’t exactly photogenic. Thanks to Ping! as he is one of the few that took any good photos of skaters in the depths. For the dedicated pipe cleaner, getting a good photo is the last thing on our minds, we just wanted to skate something big that was not made for skateboarding. One such underground arterial passage is worth telling about, a legendary pipe that remains interned underneath our urban sprawl in the Valley of the Sun….. 

The Projects

In 1988 or 89,  JFA’s (Jody Foster’s Army – the pioneers of SkateRock) crooner, Brian Brannon and I had been skating ditches and pools together for a few years by now. The usual routine, find pools anyway you can, drain, sweep, skate, and tell no one. And pools we did find… lots of them. But something much bigger was looming on the horizon…. Or in this case, nearly 10 stories underground…… And lucky for us, Brian had a keen eye and a front row seat to a rather large scale project that he noticed as he drove back and forth to his job at a printing press. Brian was working at Classy Copy Center right at the Tempe/Mesa border on the west side of Price road, before the loop 101 freeway was built.   He had been working there for a while when the construction of the freeway started connecting US-60 to Pima/Price road.  Brian clued me in and we watched for months as construction continued, looking through a fence while the massive freeway project was underway.  At the time,  Brian and I thought it would be nearly impossible to check it out during the early stages of the project,  as construction was ongoing 24 hours a day, and completely fenced off… So we waited…..

A few years prior to this Loop 101 project, the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) built two other large flood control tunnels known as the east and west tunnels near downtown Phoenix (PIC 4 – Phoenix Pipe Sections Photo: Brian Brannon), one of which was famously documented in Santa Cruz’s “Wheels of Fire” video released in 1987 (PIC 5 – Brian Brannon ripping a Phoenix Pipe in “Wheels of Fire”). Two or three years had passed and construction work started on Price road freeway and drainage tunnel began. The three mile area was bustling with activity for many months, but there was one really specific activity that caught Brian’s attention. He noticed a large scale, temporary concrete plant at the North end of the construction site and very large eight foot wide 1/3 pipe sections being, casted in place, cured,  and stacked up in the dirt,  exactly like they were in central Phoenix when the East and West tunnels were built.  It became clear that another pipe was going in. Neither Brian nor I noticed that they had snuck in a Tunnel Boring Machine or TBM (PIC 6 – Tunnel Boring Machine ) on site but they somehow did and it was stealthily doing its magic underground (PIC 7 – inside the Price Road TBM 1989). At some point, we noticed that the large pipe sections were being loaded onto a small rail car one by one; and sent downhill into a large hole in the ground heading south. We waited for about a year or so to finally commit to reconnaissance to figure out what was going on.

As the Phoenix suburbs continued to expand, the building of infrastructure including freeways, flood channels and storm drains never stopped. In the 1990’s the Price freeway (now called the Loop 101) would eventually go north toward the Salt River Indian Reservation along Pima/Price road, as well as South to the loop 202 San Tan freeway which had yet to be built. The first section to be constructed was a three mile section of freeway from the US-60 Northward to University drive and the normally dry Salt River riverbed. Due to many hearings and neighbors complaints that lived in the area, it was decided that the freeway would be designed to be below street level to lessen the freeway noise. But this sub-street level freeway design would now pose a new problem, floodwater collection. Heavy monsoon rains in the summer generates large amounts of water in short periods of time prompting the need to drain away the water out of heavily populated areas and the sunken in freeway. Couple that with the drainage of most of west Mesa’s surface level runoff which basically drains toward where the US-60 and Price road intersects.  There were two basic options to drain all of this runoff,  go South toward the Gila River Reservation and drop into the Gila River, or North to the Salt river.  The Gila River Reservation didn’t want anything to do with it, therefore the overall plan was to dig a tunnel/reservoir/catchment system similar to a gravity drainage system (PIC – 8 Price pipe proposal). Currently, it runs underneath the Loop 101/Price Road and is about 80+ feet below street level. This tunnel is 18ft in diameter, has about six major drop-shafts with helical de-aeration ramps (PIC 9 – helical ramp drop-shaft) and runs three miles from the US-60 to the Salt River channel (PIC 10 -Price pipe project). The runoff water is pumped up and out at roughly 40+ cubic feet per second to the normally dry Salt River riverbed. This tunnel also serves both county and city existing storm drain systems that previously collected in some retention basins along the western and southern edges of Mesa and when full, it can hold about 30 million gallons of water (PIC 11 – ADOT map of Price Road tunnel). 

Reconnaissance

The first time I went on recon to the Tempe Underground full pipe, another cohort and I went under cover of night and headed into the sprawling construction area South of the US-60 near Dobson Ranch area. Most of the major construction was wrapping up by this time. There were large swaths of dirt moved around and piled in different locations. Notably, there were large sloping pits heading downward towards the center of the Earth. Towards the large vertical concrete structures, I knew this is where we needed to go. We made our way down, then into a side adit/shaft and eventually found the main pipe.  In the darkness, we were armed with a crappy Eveready D-cell flashlight (the kind that when it got dim if you knocked it a few times, it would get brighter…briefly)! We made our way into the main tunnel. A glorious 18 footer, but it was still full of various construction equipment and, alas, the train track used to move in the pipe sections was still laying on the bottom running the entire length of the three mile pipe. No skating this trip. Instead, we did our best to map out the entrances, the spillways, the side tubes and drop-shafts to get a bigger picture of the future….. Eventually, it was going to happen….

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Six months later or so, another recon mission, with much higher hopes.  This time, all of the open pit depressions were filled in, the topside was flat and the only evidence of an underground wonderland were a couple of surface level small concrete boxes with a large, heavy grates on top.  One of these boxes, was very large and a straight down vertical drop-shaft, nearly 100ft and no ladder access. I can only assume this would be for lowering large equipment into the pipe for future cleaning/repair as well as the main Mesa drain runoff waterfall (anyone remember Logan’s run by the hospital off Dobson road? It drains into the pipe here) (PIC 12 – bigger map). A smaller box 50ft away proved to be the main access shaft. Complete with a 100-foot shaft and ladder case similar to an old school fire escape. We removed the large nuts holding the grate down (PIC 13 – portal), cracked open the portal, and climbed down the ladder case that led into the bowels 6 or 7 flights down (PIC 14 – climbing the final ladder to the lateral adit pipe) landing us into an eight foot diameter lateral adit.  After going through this adit tunnel for about 50 feet, it finally fed into the main 18 foot diameter pipe (PIC 15 – work zone).  This time, the railroad track was gone and the pipe was pristine (PIC 16 – Price tunnel)!!!!! Finally, after nearly two years of wondering if it would ever happen, we were in (PIC 17 – Tempe Pipe Sweep Crew Photo: Brian Brannon). A quick call to Brian and Rob Locker, and we finally got to skate nearly 10 stories underground, in a three mile long fullpipe! (PIC 18 – Steve Pingleton Ripping)

“Barging the Tempe Underground Pipes was probably one of the gnarliest adventures in my skateboarding journey. A major bust, ten stories underground with nothing but a lantern and no way out but up made it even better. I dragged my wife (girlfriend at the time) who doesn’t even skate down the abyss. I went twice. Once with Colin and crew and another with a few heads (Felix, Tex, Glenn, Tom from DC) and my gal. I remember the super thick dust in the air, complete darkness and an overwhelming feeling that you are super fucked if something happened looming over your head the whole time. What I remember most is the amazing skateboarding that went down in that pipe that was a little smaller than the Desert Pipes but super rip-able nonetheless.” 

-Rob Locker

Light at the End of the Tunnel

“In the first few sessions, we used road flares to illuminate the pipe to skate creating a heavy smoke that sat still in the stagnant air, not the greatest idea. Almost had to hold your breath at 10:00 o’clock since that’s were all the smoke was. Eventually, we got smart and would bring Coleman lanterns each taking turns holding the lantern like the Statue of Liberty.” 

-Brian Brannon (PIC 19 – Photo: Ping!)

Soon, the call was made to a couple of notorious pipe killers, the Alba brothers who made the trip out from California specifically to skate this pipe. Not long afterwards, the cat was basically out of the bag.  Other crews in the Phoenix area would eventually catch wind and session it as well (PIC 20 – The Crew).

“The Neighbors got bummed on the whole scene early on, so we could only go in on nights when there was no moon, total stealth mode. We had to cross a big canal, I remember MAlba tried to barge across and sank in the mud almost to his knees! Pretty sketchy scene as I recall, one of the PV crew broke his arm down there, and went into shock on the climb back up, we had to talk him through it, it was pretty scary being that far underground.  His nickname was “Chicken” as  I recall, I never called him ‘Chicken’ after that.  It’s all good fun until something goes wrong…..” 

-Steve Pingleton

Skating in this pipe would last a for a couple of years until an infamous session went down including the well missed Shawn Dutton (RIP).  Years later, he told me the story of him and a few buddies skating in the pipe and then seeing firefighter headlamps headed their way. Thinking it was the cops, Shawn and Co split north into the tunnel. They scrambled into one of the laterals and up one of the helical ramps in a drop-shaft and came up on the surface only to face yet another large grate bolted down.  Shawn was so panicked and full of adrenaline, he and his cohorts pushed on that grate so hard, they broke the bolts off and escaped, only to skate back to their car and see a hand full of cops waiting for them. This made Arizona Republic news as I recall. From that point on, the main ladder shaft portal was welded shut. Some years later, my wife, Diane, and I recon’ed again in a different drop-shaft (remember, I had them all mapped out). But sadly,  there was about 5 feet of water in the main pipe.  I don’t think it’s been dry since, outside of the routine maintenance periods, which are not published to my knowledge.

Tunnel Vision

Steve Pingleton would recall and capture some of these sessions which you can see here .  Thanks to Ping! for this documentation!!! Not only did he capture the Price Pipe, he has photos of nearly ALL of the Phoenix area pipes that have been skated over the years.  Please go to his site and check it out!  Also thanks to Rob Locker for putting this together, and his efforts to keep skateboarding AZ local and fanning the flames of the skateboarding spirit (Video Rob and Tara Locker). Over the past 20+ years, AZPX has fostered the underground (and above ground) movement in AZ, bringing local artists, music, and of course skateboarding together.  Another shout out goes to Brian Brannon for the recollections and photos, and of course, for sharing the wealth. Brian continues to find pools in Southern California and also sings the ballads of the underground movements as channeled through JFA.  Lastly, to Shawn Dutton, gone way too soon but not forgotten (PIC 21 – Shawn Dutton – RIP).  The heart and soul of skateboarding is still alive and well…… it’s just sometimes can be buried in plain sight.

Photo credits and captions  

PIC 1 – Gregg Ayres,  Skateboarder Magazine, April 1977

PIC 2 – CAP pipe sections near the Hassayampa River circa 1979.  Photo courtesy Steve Pingleton

PIC 3 – High Roller pipe circa 1979. Photo by Joey Albillar

PIC 4 – east/west ADOT tunnel sections in downtown Phoenix.  Note the Westward Ho hotel in the background. Circa 1986.  Photo courtesy Brian Brannon

PIC 5 – Brian Brannon tucked up in the corner of the downtown Phoenix ADOT tunnel.  Photo courtesy Brian Brannon

PIC 6 – This is the actual Tunnel Boring Machine head used on the Phoenix east and west ADOT drainage tunnels.

PIC 7 – The actual Tunnel Boring Machine in use in Tempe in 1989.  This was apparently a school field trip given during boring operations.

PIC 8 – Document detailing the proposed Price Road Tunnel Project submitted in fall 1987.

PIC 9 – Typical design of a drop-shaft surface runoff intake.  Price Tunnel has a reported 6 drop-shafts,  not all have helical ramps, but I personally have been down and up in a couple of these on the north side of US-60.

PIC 10 – The three mile pipe is located under the Loop 101 freeway, from the US-60 to the Salt River bottom.

PIC 11  – ADOT Drainage System and Major Outfall map for the East Valley.

PIC 12 – The intersection of the US-60 Superstition freeway and Loop 101.  It is here where the Price Road Tunnel starts. 

PIC 13 – The Gateway to the underground.  Once the grate is removed, the ladder case takes you nearly 100 feet below. Photo courtesy Steve Pingleton

PIC 14 – The final 20 feet was a rebar ladder on the wall of the drop-shaft.  Photo courtesy Steve Pingleton

PIC 15 – Some left over construction debris in the pipe . Photo courtesy Brian Brannon

PIC 16 – Looking down the line in the Price Pipe.  Note the adit or lateral feed.  These feed runoff from other drop-shafts along the three mile long tunnel.

PIC 17 – Cleaning up before a session in the Price Tunnel.  Photo courtesy Brian Brannon

PIC 18 – Steve Pingleton backside in the Price Tunnel.  Photo courtesy Steve Pingleton

PIC 19 – Brian Brannon burning the midnight oil in Tempe.  Photo courtesy of Steve Pingleton/Brian Brannon

PIC 20 – Exiting the Price Tunnel main into the adit lateral after a heavy sesh with Alex Vendler, Steve Alba, Animal Choy, Unknown, Micke Alba, and Brian Brannon.  Photo courtesy of Steve Pingleton

Video – Rob and Tara Locker – Possibly the only video in existence of anyone skating in the Tempe Drainage Tunnel. If you have any footage, please share it. Video courtesy of Rob Locker

PIC 21 – RIP Shawn Dutton

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