dear boyah-- i want to tell you about sandland, and its proprietor, slim jim hol

[applesauce]

slim jim hollison is a good friend of mine and a very prolific explorer. he's in his mid 30s, a mechanical engineer who designs backup generators for a living. he's from iowa, lives in saint paul. and is autistic. by far his favorite thing in the world is to explore confusing underground tunnels. over the past 14 years he's traveled to france, belgium, germany, italy, scottland, ukraine, russia, and all over the united states and canada in pursuit of his obsession. i doubt there is a single person alive today who has visited more abandoned mines in the upper midwest than jim.

growing up two of jim's biggest hobbies were drawing intricate mazes and building massive snowforts. for well over a decade, jim has dreamed of designing and digging his own tunnel system-- what he refers to as "the legacy"

in 2008 jim began searching for the perfect plot of land-- he needed it to have the right geology, a layer of soft sandstone thick enough to dig a giant 3d tunnel maze in, he also need the land to be close enough to the twin cities to be easy to get to, but on the wisconsin side of the border, due to the differences in minnesota and wisconsin land-use laws.

in april 2011 he purchased the land-- 14 acres in pepin county, wi. a thickly wooded ravine with an old abandoned logging road cut through it, at the end of a dead-end dirt road just 2 miles from the highway and 90 minutes from saint paul. across the 14 acres there's a 140-foot elevation difference, and there's a 35-foot thick layer of soft jordan sandstone sandwiched between the limestone above and the harder sandstone below.

he came up with what he considered to be the most efficient confusing maze design-- drawing it out on paper and building an aluminum model of it, then getting another explorer to build a 3d computer model of it, then dividing it into 116 tunnel segments, each with an orientation, slope angle, and length that could be surveyed out. meanwhile jim got a lawer to set up two LLCs-- Sandland Properties, which owns the land, and Sandy Cataphile, which operates it. Jim's plan is to hand the land down through generations of explorers who will continue to expand the tunnel system and the other fun things on the property.

by july 2011 he began digging. we dig using and electric-powered chipping hammer (sort of like a mini jackhammer) and hauling it back out through the tunnels in wagons. a fully loaded wagon holds about 300lbs of sand, and it takes roughly 2.5 wagons to dig 1 foot of tunnel. as we dig we use the disto (a combination digital compass and laser rangefinder) to make sure we're going in the right direction, and set permanent survey stations after each of the 116 tunnel segments.

at this point we have about 230 feet of tunnel dug, as well as a fairly large sitting room. the maze is about 48% complete. once the maze is done we will dig a really large sitting room

i just thought i would share this with you. i will post some photos in the next post.

[applesauce]

[Commander Fuckass]

cool/10!!!

[snoorkel]

the best thing about real life is that there are things this wacky in it lol

[Samus Aran]

dude that's fucking awesome

[Classic]

That's awesome. Good for him. 

[Socks]

Make it police proof and stock it like Suribachi.

[me003]

do the 3d modeling in minecraft

[Daddy]

for some reason i thought sandland was a code name for snorkel and slim jim hol was a reference to me.

[strongbad]

that's so fucking cool man

[applesauce]

here are more photos

setting a survey:





haulin sand:





misc tunnel photos:









when drunk people have gasoline and tunnels to play with:



sometimes lots of people come for the weekend:



also sandland has guns:



...for blowing up microwaves:

[applesauce]

so slim jim has completed phase 1 of the maze and its actually terrifying and really confusing and people have gotten lost and scared and its great

also another friend of ours bought the monorail from the minnesota zoo and moved it out there and we are turning it into a chain of cabins.

[Socks]

Dude update the original photos if you can. Also that is an excellent idea. There is a former military salt mine that was sold out in Kentucky I believe, so vast that the company who now operates it it, encourages all of their tenants to bring and park their RVs and trailer homes in there. It's probably equivalent in terms of town population with several hundred such setups. I remember the lease was something like a few thousands dollars. Kind of amazing to imagine that emergency underground mini community in an Apocalypse scenario.

[applesauce]

so sandland has a new website with some writeups and photos: http://tunnelcity.com/

also we are working on phase 2 and its coming along pretty well. we are working on installing a winch to help haul sand which wil l be super sweet. we're almost to 400 feet of tunnel dug.

[Daddy]

for some reason i thought sandland was a code name for snorkel and slim jim hol was a reference to me.

I just saw this thread bumped and stiill thought the same fucking thing.