A group of hikers who had been exploring a virtually untouched area of the Grand Canyon happened upon an opening in the side of the canyon wall last July. Peter Marlington and his friends had discovered the entrance to an underground complex that has been estimated to be over four hundred years old and built in the late 1500s.
“It was hot as hell out and we were hiking up the side of the cliff to get into a wooded area for the shade.” Peter Marlington explained. “When we reached the shrub line we felt a cool breeze coming from the high weeds that were growing on the side of the cliff. It seemed very odd that a cool breeze would be coming from nowhere like that, so we poked around to see why.
When we pushed our way past the shrubbery we came to the entrance of a large brick-lined tunnel. We could tell right away that it was very old, but we had no idea that it would turn out to be as old as they say it is.”
The entrance to the complex has been cleared of the shrubbery that kept it hidden for 400 years.
“We were a little hesitant at first to go inside because we didn’t know what it was. We thought it might be a flood tunnel and we could be drowned in a sudden storm came up. And it was really kind of creepy too. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’ll tell you when you are staring into an old dark musty smelling tunnel like that, it will give anyone the creeps. After a few minutes of debating whether or not we should go inside, the spirit of exploration overruled our fears, out came our flashlights, and into the tunnel, we went.
It went for quite a distance all on very level ground. We knew that if it was a flood tunnel that it would be slopped upward, we were relieved when we realized that we weren’t going to be flushed out in a sudden deluge. After a few hundred feet the tunnel stopped, it was boarded up.”
The National Reporter – Did you turn back?
“Oh, hell no. We broke through. We had to. If we quit just because of some old rotten wood blocking our way and turned around, we would have spent the rest of our lives going crazy wondering what was on the other side of that door.”
The National Reporter – I can understand that. As a staff member of The National Reporter, I would have continued on as well to satisfy my curiosity and to bring yet another award-winning news story to my readers. So, What was on the other side of the wooden barricade?
“Another tunnel. It was a lot smaller than the one we were in, it was more like a doorway in the wall. It was pitch black inside and it smelled kind of funny, like something that has been dead for real long time, you know, like dried up and dusty smelling. We made our way inside and soon came to another tunnel that went off to the right and another one about twenty feet ahead that went to the left.
We didn’t go down either of them, we just kept going straight.