Raiders of the Lost Toilet Factory

Explorers take their inspiration from movies as well. Many cite Raiders of the Lost Ark and its sequels as early influences. Others include Fight Club and the Matrix series. Vale and Dirtbag's favorite is Goonies. (One post on an Internet UE forum reads: "Pirate ship--best find ever!!")

Though most explorers are film fans, the same doesn't hold true for coverage of urban exploration in other media.

"Ninety percent of the articles suck," Vale says flatly. "They try to turn it into an MTV extreme sport."

Now worse may be on the horizon. The community at UER is up in arms over a series set to air in coming months on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Washington, D.C.-based Hoggard Films, the show is titled Urban Explorers. The UE faithful are worried that the visibility of a series will raise alarm bells among property owners, especially with the risky nature of exploring played up for entertainment value. A fear of lawsuits could prompt tighter security at sites that even post-September 11 paranoia didn't reach.

Hoggard raised hackles right off the bat. In the casting call issued in late 2003, the company said it was looking for "an adventurous, dynamic, structural engineer" and "a hip, buff female rock climber/extreme athlete," among others. "All should be telegenic, fit, engaging, with unique and memorable personalities," the text says. "We're looking for people with the desire and charisma to become national TV celebrities."

In other words: the antithesis of explorers' traditional self-identity. Online reactions have ranged from resignation--"It won't help the UE scene, but there's not much that can be done now but watch it and see how they handle themselves"--to outrage--"I hope all the TV network guys that thought this up die slowly and go to hell."

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Just minutes into a UE mission with Armed Geoduck and his brother, a gangly teenager who goes by the name Big Tex, I learn another lesson: Going last can be just as hazardous as going first. We are walking toward the gate of an abandoned chemical plant just south of downtown when a voice rings out behind us.

"Hey, where are you guys going?"

I had been hanging back behind the other two, so when we about-face, I am suddenly the closest to the security guard.

"Uh, nowhere. Just looking around." I manage to keep my voice nonchalant. Inspiration strikes, and I add, "We're trying to cut through."

"Well, you can't go in there," the guard says. He is standing next to the open door of a black sedan. We'd spotted a guard at the other end of the site and hadn't expected another one. "That's private property," he says.

"Really?" I say, feigning utter astonishment at the information. "It looks like a public street."

"No, the public street's that way," the guard says, pointing. His tone is genial now, amused at my confusion.

We thank him and amble off in the indicated direction. After we're out of earshot, Geoduck speaks up.

"You handled that pretty well," he says. "Most first-timers are just like, 'Uhhh...'"

The praise doesn't go to my head, but the rush of talking my way out of a jam does. Bullshitting a rent-a-cop is junior high stuff, but it's just as much fun as an adult--maybe more so.

We circle back around the factory via some train tracks, walking for a quarter-hour before we see a gate opened in invitation. To get to it, we cross a gravel driveway. I feel faintly ridiculous as I cover the distance in a crouching run. We take shelter in the shadow of a working warehouse, only a swath of concrete pavement between us and our target.

But the road, a channel between two lengthy buildings, is naked under the orange glare of floodlights. Anyone on it would be clearly visible, with no place to hide. Geoduck decides to look for another avenue of approach, and we cut through a strip of woods to the street on the far side of the objective. We head up the sidewalk looking as normal as three guys casing a warehouse at midnight can.

We see another open gate, but this time the driveway it serves will take us right where we need to go. A cop car rolls by. I no longer feel even remotely foolish: All my mental energy is focused on getting into the building unseen. Geoduck, with his flair for the dramatic, gives us a countdown as another passing car disappears around the bend.

"Three, two, one, go!"

We sprint across the parking lot and through the gate. In this case, the haste is necessary: Until we get far enough into the factory, we're in plain view of the road. I keep an anxious eye out for cars as we pound along the driveway. None appear, and we reach the darkness of a tanker filling dock and kneel down, our chests heaving.

From there we go up--the filling dock is connected by overhead pipes and a catwalk to the main building. A wooden ladder in lamentable shape gives access to the catwalk, whose planks are in even worse condition, warped and buckled. The metal pipe handrail is useless, its anchors virtually falling out of the rotting wood, but Geoduck and Big Tex make it across to the roof. I follow cautiously, but about two-thirds of the way across I step on one end of a loose plank running lengthwise. The other end lifts in the air and comes down with the rattling smack of board against board.