The Abandoned Turnpike Tunnel

For my partner's birthday, I arranged a trip for us. I kept the ultimate destination a secret, but I also made plans that I shared with her before we left: visiting an abandoned turnpike tunnel.

Background: when the Pennsylvania turnpike was built, they dug a bunch of tunnels through mountains. They were all two lane tunnels, which became traffic bottlenecks. So for the most part they dug a second tunnel next to each of the existing tunnels. But for whatever reason, three of the tunnels were abandoned and the road rerouted.

One of the tunnels is still owned by the Turnpike Commission, which apparently leases it to a racing company, which runs some sort of Super Top Secret Racing Experiments there. The other two are on one common stretch of (abandoned roadway) and are discreetly open to hiking and bicyling. They were sold at one point to a group that wanted to fix it up a bit, with lights and whatnot. That group has apparently not raised the funds they needed to, because nothing has happened.

I'm actually glad. The lack of lights is the experience.

I chose Sideling Hill tunnel over Ray's Hill tunnel because it's longer - something like 1.25 miles. The internet claimed that in the middle, you wouldn't be able to see out either side because of the tunnel's curve. Sadly, this was not the case.

The internet also claimed it was pitch black, can't see your hand in front of your face dark. Also not the case. At least during the day.

So despite not living up to those particular pieces of hype, it was still really neat.

The two of us walked the whole way. We only turned on our flashlight at the end because other people were coming in the other side and we didn't want to be jerks and scare the ever loving crap out of them. We rested and turned back. We took pictures at each side but not in the middle.

So what was it like inside? Well, you can't see the other side at first... but the light from the other side reflects off the ceiling. So you're always walking towards light. It's just far off and you can't see anything ahead of you. You're dimly lit from behind for a long time, though. So during the daytime, it's never pitch black.

I would call it a good amount of scary. I wouldn't have conquered it alone. But with my partner, it was fun to hold hands and enter the void. I was slightly the more scared of us.

As a postscript, we drove on and camped for the night at Coopers Rock State Forest in West Virginia. It has a nice overlook we went to just before dark. But mostly it was just a place to put our tent down.