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The underground world of hobby tunneling
- timsuchanek 3y agoMinecraft addiction in real life
- Bytewave81 3y agoThe children yearn for the mines.
- lettergram 3y ago> TikTok’s “Tunnel Girl” has focused fresh attention on the amateur excavators who build their own underground infrastructure — often in defiance of local laws. Gotta love we’re at the point where digging a tunnel on your own land, which you own, is illegal lol
- gazook89 3y ago> “At the point” There are many things you cannot do on your property, and that has been true for a long long time.
- crooked-v 3y agoA badly-dug tunnel can be a huge risk to your neighbors' properties, as well as to any underground infrastructure in the area.
- ceejayoz 3y agoAnd to the poor people who have to risk their lives getting you or your corpse out.
- dekhn 3y agoit's for a good reason; many people who tunnel don't know how to make tunnels safe, and there's lots of collateral damage when they fail.
- op00to 3y agoDigging can affect utilities, water drainage, cause subsidence… of course it’s illegal, unless you get a permit. If you want to dig without a permit go to some place in the middle of nowhere.
- Mtinie 3y agoYou need permits to dig a tunnel in Herndon (VA), so it’s not illegal. Similar to any major construction on your home. She didn’t secure them beforehand.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ggm 3y agoModifications to structures and land in almost all developed economies is subject to planning law. Even something as apparently free as rainfall collection can be subject to regulation. It can be encouraged or discouraged, depending.
- reactordev 3y agoExcept she’s digging it in 200sqft of urban housing backyard in Herndon, VA USA. If you have 10 acres and want to dig a hole, go for it. But if you want to dig a tunnel in your backyard and your two neighbors houses are 100ft or less away… yeah, I would think twice.
- EA-3167 3y agoEven if you're in the middle of nowhere, people expect to be rescued if something goes wrong... sort of like that Titan submersible. In the abstract it's fine to take huge risks, but it sucks when people implicitly turn those costs over when something goes wrong.
- victorbjorklund 3y agoYou can say the same about any hobby that is more dangerous than sitting in the sofa. We would need to make it illegal to do any type of diving, climbing of mountains, skiing off-pist etc.
- lukan 3y agoOr instead of illegal, limit mandatory rescuing, or have people to pay for it themself. Btw. no one will rescue you, if you need help above 7000 m. (unless you made special arrangements with somebody) Or, just don't change much. And as far as I know, in many states around the world, you will have to pay for helicopter rescue, unless your insurance covers it (but the insurance fee is really not that much).
- victorbjorklund 3y agoYes, I agree. Same with boating just for fun. Let the people drown or pay to be rescued. They took a risk choosing to be on the water. They should pay the price for that risk.
- garbagewoman 3y agoIf it is in a suburban area (as is the case with the creator mentioned in your quote) a collapse would put surrounding properties at risk
- jvanderbot 3y agoRight, in a sense, we all own the infra they're endangering. Now out on the farm, maybe do what you want.
- TylerE 3y agoNot just that but part of why planning exists in the first place is so they can verify things like that there aren't buried unmarked sewer lines or gas mains back there.
- makeitdouble 3y agoYes, I'd totally hate my house collapsing over me and my family because the neighboor excavated the rocks that were keeping my house's foundations stable in place. I assume heavily changing the water infiltration/leaking paths could also have significant effects on how the ground behaves even outside of the area that is worked on. PS: My dumb brain 30min after waking up: "surrounding properties" + "value" + "at risk" was the phrase I first read from your comment.
- progfix 3y agoBuilding regulations exist for thousand of years and for good reasons ... lol
- kragen 3y agowait until you find out what happened when the temple of damanhur was discovered
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 3y agoThere’s an old myth that Seymour Cray used to dig tunnels in his backyard.
- leoc 3y agoJohn Rollwagen put the story about while chairman of Cray Research: https://web.archive.org/web/20080521163217/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,967095,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080521163217/http://www.time.c... http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/writing/PCW/cray.htm http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/writing/PCW/cray.htm . There is at least one report that it was indeed just mythmaking, though: https://boingboing.net/2006/08/10/seymour-cray-liked-t.html https://boingboing.net/2006/08/10/seymour-cray-liked-t.html .
- thih9 3y agoWikipedia agrees, with sources too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_tunneling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_tunneling
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago> Ritchie isn’t digging with any destination in mind; he digs for the pure joy and meditation that comes with it. > “I just feel like a kid again,” Ritchie said. “It really puts me in the moment and relieves stress.” In a world saturated with "productivity porn" and side hustles, I just absolutely love that.
- sharkweek 3y agoI’m nearing 40 and when I’m at any beach with sand you better believe I’m gonna see how deep I can dig a hole. Brings back a lot of that childhood joy of being absolutely certain I was almost about to dig through the earth’s crust once it started to get hard. Only about 19.999 miles short if we’re talking about averages.
- lostlogin 3y agoBuilding a dam on a stream can be like this too.
- fudged71 3y agoFor 10 years I’ve been building hotspring pools at one spring. The material you add gets coated in limestone deposits pretty quickly. So it really feels like building a legacy for my young ones to play in when they’re older.
- bongodongobob 3y agoCareful, generally, diverting or otherwise messing with the flow of waterways is illegal. Got a talking to from a DNR officer when I was a kid.
- explaininjs 3y agoNot just illegal, the potential impact on a waterbed is huge. I spoke at length with a BLM hydrologist about this, artificial deepening of discrete hot spring pools can and has caused entire areas to wash out into a uniform warm muck.
- paulkrush 3y agoThis is awesome Sandland got some mainstream news. I look at them as a hackerspace with professional members, and sometimes mining engineers. Not mentioned is City Museum in St Louis. They let little kids roam the tunnels!
- chris-orgmenta 3y agoHere's a really interesting one. (sort by oldest, third video onwards) - https://www.youtube.com/@Paleas/videos https://www.youtube.com/@Paleas/videos Tradie somewhere in QLD, I am guessing. Perhaps underneath a condo or small hotel. At some point, they become a bit 'psytrance music video', from what I remember.
- ricardobeat 3y agoJudging by later videos his tunnel collapsed (no casualties) and he moved to some other outdoor location and activities. I can’t imagine this being safe at all in a city, with the amount of underground infrastructure and weight of buildings, houses, sidewalks and pavement all around you. Seems irresponsible.
- chris-orgmenta 3y agoOh absolutely. I'm surprised that no-one located (somehow) and reported him before then. I'm sure the digger would say that it's just rubble (nothing structural) he was touching, but there are of course plenty of issues & it's besides the point / could be incorrect anyway.
- paulkrush 3y agoA friend of mine said in Moscow Russia people use to dig basements under precast concrete car size storage units. Every once in a while the the whole unit would fall in the hole halfway or more.
- Scoundreller 3y agoWater wells using concrete rings, same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuo1zsabKKI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuo1zsabKKI
- jacquesm 3y agoI've done that it is amazingly effective. Also pretty weird to start on Monday at ground level and by Wednesday afternoon you realize you will need a longer ladder. Also interesting how quick you strike water but then you're not done yet so for a while you need to get rid of the water faster than it flows in.
- tdeck 3y agoHere's a video about those Soviet cellars. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I_zvj4R5DaY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I_zvj4R5DaY It's wild to me that people would do this in the city right near their apartment building.
- amano-kenji 3y agoLooks more like an underground bunker.
- hsuduebc2 3y agoI somehow understand why builsing infite space under your house is weirdly calming.
- thelastparadise 3y agowhy
- linsomniac 3y agoI have a crawlspace under half my house, and made the mistake of watching a YouTube video about how to do "underpinning". Now I want to dig it out down to 10ft to use for some desperately needed storage space, maybe some gym space. Our local building office is amazingly supportive of DIYers, and I appreciate them double checking my work.
- db48x 3y agoYou don’t need to dig it out to get more storage space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU
- jacquesm 3y agoI knew what video that was before clicking...
- beej71 3y agoIf you ever get a chance to visit him in Berkeley, I thoroughly recommend doing so. Not only can you stock up on Klein bottles and scarves, but the man's an absolute treasure and delight, and, depending on how old you were when _The Cuckoo's Egg_ was published, perhaps one of your childhood heroes. I have one of his bottles right here on my desk.
- Azkar 3y agoI read The Cuckoo's Egg only a few years ago (in my 30s) and it's an absolute delight. Easy to understand if you do any sort of linux administration, and really demonstrates how lax things were and how far we've come in terms of cyber security.
- jeffrallen 3y agoYou got CliffRolled.
- linsomniac 3y ago
- _dain_ 3y agothis is the final frontier. we've conquered the land, the oceans, the skies. some people live in orbit, men have walked on the moon. but you can still carve out a new world for yourself. you can still go down. there's enough room down there for a whole new world, with different borders and nations. and another one below that .. layers and layers like an onion. one hundred billion mole-men, saturating the earth's crust --
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoFuturama's (old) New York. But that's the domain of the sewer mutants. They flush their unwanted reptilian pets to the sub-sewer, where they become monsters.
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoThere is even precedent: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220810-derinkuyu-turkeys-underground-city-of-20000-people https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220810-derinkuyu-turkey...
- pomian 3y agoBeware that those down there, don't turn into Morlocks.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoI was promised an Iron Mole in "At the Earth's Core". Where is my drill tank?
- lazyasciiart 3y agoWe haven’t conquered the ocean below sea-level, really.
- maxden 3y agothought your comment was going to become a quote from the Artilleryman from Jeff Waynes musical version of War of the Worlds! "We're gonna build a whole new world for ourselves. Look, they clap eyes on us and we're dead, right? So we gotta make a new life where they'll never find us. You know where? Underground. You should see it down there – hundreds of miles of drains – sweet and clean now after the rain, dark, quiet, safe. We can build houses and everything, start again from scratch. And what's so bad about living underground, eh? It's not been so great living up here, if you want my opinion."
- huytersd 3y agoI wish I could do this but living in central North Carolina it would probably fill up with water in days.
- thelastparadise 3y agoDO NOT try this lol you will drown
- huytersd 3y agoLike you’re from N.C. and know it will fill up with water or just a general warning?
- TylerE 3y agoEverything floods here. I’m, depending on exactly what direction draw the line in, about 25-100miles inland, and my whole town is only about 10ft above sea level. If I travel farther inland it’ll rise a bit, but not that much, and the soil is full of clay and doesn’t drain well. It’s a wet and muddy state.
- schneems 3y agoThe missing soundtrack to this article https://youtu.be/34CZjsEI1yU?si=HWSwnEf8o6_ehuo7 https://youtu.be/34CZjsEI1yU?si=HWSwnEf8o6_ehuo7
- ajb 3y agoSee also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamson_Tunnels https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williamson_Tunnels from 1810..1830 There are three completely different theories as to why he built them - prepping for the end times, philanthropy towards the unemployed, and secretly quarrying where he didn't have the mineral rights.
- thelastparadise 3y agoGood way to get a darwin award.
- xrd 3y agoThis American Life has an episode about a guy in Canada that did this for similarly vague reasons.
- ethbr1 3y agoIf you all enjoy digging hobby tunnels, then can I interest you in someone excavating their basement using only miniature remote control construction vehicles? Digging & hauling: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=He00d6Gpxs8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=He00d6Gpxs8 More recent rock crusher: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TSaqSzziaE8&t=3m31s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TSaqSzziaE8&t=3m31s (There's 16 years / 379 videos so far, if you are into RC earthmoving ASMR)
- pests 3y agoHow interesting.
- ethbr1 3y agoI stumbled across it years ago, and it's always struck me as quintessential original-YouTube content: someone, somewhere, doing a thing that makes them happy and they'd like to share.
- pests 3y agoThat is my favorite era and genre of YT. Someone doing something they love and recording it. I don't mind if the channel grows and gets better editing or whatnot. I just like the purity of it. You still can find a lot of stuff today. The "culture" of YT has changed a bit but you can still people doing their passion. I'm currently watching Andrew Caramata. He does heavy machinery / property restoration and was previously working on a container castle but now has a mountaintop in upstate NY and is currently using the exact same tools you showed off originally - crushing some rock to build out some roads. Now that I think of it, this autoplayed after your video! I've followed Caramata for years though so nice seeing him still making progress.
- lobsterthief 3y agoI had [a YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/howchoo https://www.youtube.com/howchoo) that hit 25k subscribers from only about 20-25 videos. I worked happily at it for a few years off and on, but the economics of YouTube didn’t make sense for the amount of time I was spending, despite loving doing it. Love is not enough; I love doing a lot of things but only have so many hours in the day. It would’ve been great if YouTube paid enough for me to do it full time without having to chase likes, subscribers, and sponsors. Then I would be at a few hundred videos. So yeah, screw YouTube. But I learned a lot and got to invent a lot of cool stuff—like turning a Furby into an Amazon Echo, building a rugged arcade cabinet in a case, being the first to put a Raspberry Pi into an NES cartridge, etc. Hoping to return someday with a new channel once I can afford to not get paid anything to make the videos (albeit on a new channel; we sold Howchoo, and the channel was sold with it)
- e40 3y agoYoutuber Colin Furze is in the midst of some underground shenanigans and I really love watching him.
- phinnaeus 3y agoI do recommend his videos. He's got a very strong personality that may be to the disliking of some (including myself initially) but the more I watch the more I think it's genuine and have even come to enjoy it. But his work ethic and "just do it" attitude are really inspiring in a way. I was glad to see him called out in the article.
- e40 3y agoI love that he doesn't force content. It's ready when it's ready. He does have a newish channel "2 Much ColinFurze" which I like. It's less polished content, but I enjoy it.
- db48x 3y agoShh, that’s supposed to be a secret tunnel/underground garage!
- aaron695 3y agoMost of the worlds miners are artisanal, millions still do this for a living present day. Often you can pay a nominal amount to go down into their (illegal) mine. I did get stuck because my western legs were to long to climb out the 10m shaft, I'd go to step into the leghold dug in the red earth but my knee would hit the side. The reporter who shut down Kala is a pretty awful person (from their past work). Everyone following knew Kala wasn't going to have the paperwork. The reporter enjoyed going about it in a nasty way, which is sad, but that's a lot of todays media. There are other tunneling TikToks out there.
- golergka 3y agoHonest question: aren't people afraid of cave ins?
- CuriousCosmic 3y agoYes. The people who do this and actually get far are painfully aware of the risks of cave ins. You can do a whole lot to protect yourself but it is always a danger that's looming.
- kilroy123 3y agoThe Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno, CA, is the OG version of this hobby or obsession. https://youtu.be/mUKRPoQKynk?si=6mO7VIlwti-h_DKp https://youtu.be/mUKRPoQKynk?si=6mO7VIlwti-h_DKp
- cortesoft 3y agoJust visited there last year. It is really quite cool.
- hash07e 3y ago[flagged]
- pugworthy 3y agoFrom 2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783972
- dang 3y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Hobby Tunneling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36885802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36885802 - July 2023 (13 comments) Hobby Tunneling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28257515 - Aug 2021 (6 comments) Hobby Tunneling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24078638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24078638 - Aug 2020 (2 comments) The ‘Unfathomable’ Pursuit of Personal Tunneling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783972 - June 2015 (39 comments) Honorable mentions (but no comments there): After 40 years' burrowing, Mole Man of Hackney is ordered to stop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17459816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17459816 - July 2018 (0 comments) The Mole Man of Hackney - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833865 - Jan 2016 (0 comments)
- CamperBob2 3y agoFamous tunneler: Seymour Cray ( https://shop.minimuseum.com/blogs/specimens/cray-supercomputer https://shop.minimuseum.com/blogs/specimens/cray-supercomput... ) In his spare time, Cray dug a massive tunnel under his house, complete with a periscope, and joked that elves in the tunnel would help him solve whatever computer problem he was faced with. As Cray himself once said: "I'm up in the Wisconsin woods, and there are elves in the woods. So when they see me leave, they come into my office and solve all the problems I'm having. Then I go back up and work some more."
- neonate 3y agohttps://archive.ph/yLZEA https://archive.ph/yLZEA
- redcobra762 3y agoPhilosopher Susan Wolf talks about the "meaningful life" as, "lives of active engagement in projects of worth." A classic example that is given about how important both are is the idea that while one can actively engage in digging a hole in their backyard, it won't lead to a "meaningful life" because it's not a "project of worth." This hobby I suppose could serve either as a strong counterpoint, or would reveal a whole bunch of empty souls. Up to you to decide which.
- lioeters 3y agoIs it ironic to pick up a hobby of digging a hole to fill that hole in your soul? For some of these people, it could be "meaningful" enough - after all, meaning and value are subjective. Or, perhaps the very meaninglessness has value for them, like a game without a practical purpose.
- alephnan 3y agoThe nihilistic view is that nothing matters anyways. The sun will die. It doesn’t matter if you are Bill Gates. In 1,000 years, most traces of our existence would have been forgotten. Look at the ancient kingdoms and rulers. Sure, the pharaohs we care about, but some random king elsewhere? Maybe not.
- lukan 3y agoThat's the nihilistic future. The optimistic future sees the human raise up further and further and beyond the solar system. Not as humans anymore, but evolved. There is no limit.
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoThis article reminds me of 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/39/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/39/ Such a sad yet interesting story.
- nodesocket 3y agoMore information[1][2] about 3 alarm lamp scooter and the accidental death case. What a story, Daniel clearly is “insanely” smart, and he gave a few talks at various conferences like Defcon. One such talk was about Bitcoin[3] very early and he makes some damn good arguments. Would be fascinating to hear from him today after his prison time. I assume he still has Bitcoin so money is probably not a concern. [1] https://apnews.com/article/fires-maryland-45dc0979edcf4418809314879ce06bce https://apnews.com/article/fires-maryland-45dc0979edcf441880... [2] https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2022/07/a-bethesda-man-convicted-of-a-tunnel-death-released-early-from-prison/ https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2022/07/a-bethesda-man-co... [3] https://youtu.be/Yj2blBX2iBw https://youtu.be/Yj2blBX2iBw
- CTDOCodebases 3y agoThanks for linking the Bitcoin talk I’ll check it out.
- nodesocket 3y ago$8 a bitcoin when he gave the talk. Dear lord!
- apantel 3y agoClear evidence of moles reincarnating as humans.
- iamflimflam1 3y agoColin Furze gets a mention in the article. If you enjoy this kind of content his recent videos (and his “too much Colin Furze” extra channel) are good fun.
- zeristor 3y ago“An engineer dubbed 'the Mole Man' spent 40 years digging tunnels under his London home. After it was abandoned, an artist transformed it into a subterranean studio.” https://www.businessinsider.com/mole-man-house-london-artist-transformed-home-photos?amp https://www.businessinsider.com/mole-man-house-london-artist...
- slow_typist 3y agohttps://www.odditycentral.com/news/man-digs-40-meter-deep-hole-in-his-kitchen-after-dreaming-he-would-strike-gold.html https://www.odditycentral.com/news/man-digs-40-meter-deep-ho... This guy dug 40m down from his kitchen and died.
- CPLX 3y agoI’m not the kind of person that believes in the devil. But if I was I feel like this guys dreams would be a data point.
- worldwidelies 3y agoI wonder if there's DNA markers that predispose people to this type of "hobby". There's evidence that humans lived in caves and underground bunkers for extended periods of time. There's even ancient underground cities with dedicated water sources and ventilation systems. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city
- Liquix 3y agoGreat notion! Are there any projects or publications attemtping to map preferences like 'invigorated by mountainous forests', 'enjoys building and living in underground tunnels', etc to DNA markers? It seems plausible that these preferences could be genetically embedded based on ancestors' living conditions.
- standardly 3y agoThere is certainly some psychological component at play. One of my favorite childhood memories is of me and my cousin digging tunnels for our hotwheels cars in a 10' mound of dirt my grandpa had hauled in. I recently tried this new Enshrouded game with another friend and we dug a tunnel for our base (for no reason). I just find it... cozy? I think ancestral cave dwelling may for sure be a factor here, wrt evolutionary psychology (a scientific domain I wish was not as primitive)
- gadders 3y agoAre these people digging the whole thing by hand? It sounds exhausting.
- seafoamteal 3y agoI remember when I was a kid, there was an empty plot of land next to my Grandma's house. My cousins and I took a shovel to it for a couple of days over the summer and dug out a decent sized hole (well, for kids, at least). There really is something just therapeutic about it.
- hojinkoh 3y agoBefore clicking into the actual article, I wondered (just from the title alone) if bloomberg suddenly started to cover shadowsocks or something.... lol
- DrNosferatu 3y agoRepeat of: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39189796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39189796
- quickthrower2 3y agoDarwin Awards material. I was thinking yeah give your house (most of your wealth for most people) subsidence yay! But in the article they point out yeah you can get poisoned or drown. Great.
- qznc 3y agoNo jab at Elon and his Boring Company?
- shagie 3y agoA classic and tech relevant example - https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,967095,00.html https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,967... > Technology: Just Dig While You Work - Monday, Mar. 28, 1988 > Where does the world's foremost designer of high-speed computers get his inspiration? Apparently deep in a dirt tunnel beneath his Wisconsin home, according to John Rollwagen, the chairman of Cray Research. As Rollwagen tells it, Seymour Cray, the company's elusive founder, has been dividing his time between building the next generation of supercomputers and digging an underground tunnel that starts below his Chippewa Falls house and heads toward the nearby woods. "He's been working at it for some time now," says Rollwagen, who reports that the tunnel is 8 ft. high, 4 ft. wide and lined with 4-by-4 cedar boards. When a tree fell through the top of the tunnel several years ago, Cray used the opening to install a periscope-equipped lookout. > For Cray, the excavation project is more than a simple diversion. "I work when I'm at home," he recently told a visiting scientist. "I work for three hours, and then I get stumped, and I'm not making progress. So I quit, and I go and work in the tunnel. It takes me an hour or so to dig four inches and put in the 4-by-4s. Now, as you can see, I'm up in the Wisconsin woods, and there are elves in the woods. So when they see me leave, they come into my office and solve all the problems I'm having. Then I go back up and work some more." > Rollwagen knows that Cray is only half kidding and that some of the designer's greatest inspirations come when he is digging. Says the chairman: "The real work happens when Seymour is in the tunnel." --- Part of the diagram of the tunnels can be seen at Computer History Museum - The Cray Way from the Revolution Exhibition :: https://youtu.be/MQYGPAZJZ-s?si=dTy6gxtgqDSFuLIk&t=172 https://youtu.be/MQYGPAZJZ-s?si=dTy6gxtgqDSFuLIk&t=172
- FooBarBizBazz 3y agoI love the story of William "Burro" Schmidt. He was a miner in California. He had a reason, somewhat flimsy, to dig a half-mile tunnel through a mountain. Nominally it was to connect his mining claims to a smelter. He started digging the tunnel, by hand, on his own, with pick-axe and dynamite. And, once started, he kept going, straight through granite, for thirty-eight years! Finally he succeeded. He got to the other side. It must have been a disorienting feeling -- "I've been digging for thirty-eight years, and I've achieved my goal. What do I do now?" You'd think that maybe he'd finally start to set up his mine and run cars full of ore through the tunnel. That was the point, right? The whole justification for the project? Nope. He sold his claim and walked away. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_Schmidt_Tunnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burro_Schmidt_Tunnel It's the most wonderful, absurd, existentialist story, and it's real. I forget where I first read it. This telling looks like it captures the right feeling: https://yankeebarbareno.com/2014/04/13/burro-schmidt-tunnel-and-shanty-1906-1930s/ https://yankeebarbareno.com/2014/04/13/burro-schmidt-tunnel-...
- micw 3y agoOMG, that's - literally - a big rabbit hole to dig into. I started with the linked video of "ColinFurze" earlier today and I'm still fascinated and watching...
- shellfishgene 3y ago"The cave digger" is a nice documentary on Ra Paulette, who was somewhat addicted to digging elaborately decorated caves in soft rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n_bHcZaGJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n_bHcZaGJs