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Valhalla Missile Silo, Abilene, Texas (by Roger Veteto)
We geared up and got in. The water was cool, but we got used to it quickly. We went down a nylon descent line that was rigged up and headed for the bottom. At about 90 feet, we started seeing the debris that's on the bottom. In the salvage process, several ducts, stairs, and other large items ended up at the bottom of the silo. As a result, you can't make it all the way to the bottom. Most people logged between 100 and 107 feet on the first dive. We spent a few minutes examining the items on the bottom before starting our ascent. It's easy to lose perspective of where you are there, so it's important to watch your computer closely during your ascents. We worked our way up to 50 feet, where there is an old inertial guidance system room attached to the side wall. This gave us some good photo ops. After looking around there for a bit, we began our ascent back to 15 feet for our safety stop and then on to the surface. Most people logged about 30 minute dives for the first dive and everyone got out of the water excited about getting to dive there.
This report was provided by City of Houston Underwater Mariners (CHUM). They can be found on the web at www.chumclub.org
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One
of the most unique dives you can ever do is at Valhalla, a decommissioned
ICBM silo that is a privately-owned dive site. Saturday morning, we got
an early start. We loaded all of the tanks and gear into the car and headed
toward the missile silo. It was closer to Abilene that I expected, only
about 30 minutes away, so we arrived at the dive site by about 9:00. There
we met Mark Hannifin, the owner of the dive site, as well as Family Scuba
in Midland. Mark gave us a tour of the top-side of the site, showing us
the concrete doors that would have opened to launch the missile before
we went inside. Walking in the door, you go down a long stairwell before
coming to the first steel door that controlled entry when the silo was
operational. Walking through that, you went down a few more flights of
stairs and ended up in a hallway that split to the silo at one end, and
a large room at the other. The large room had been the crew's living quarters
and now served as our changing & staging area. There were several benches
as well as a toilet shed. Since all of the salvageable material had been
removed from the site, the room was basically a large concrete circle,
and had some very interesting acoustics. Walking down the hall the other
way, you pass through more large steel doors and end up at the door to
the silo itself. The silo is a pretty impressive sight. Looking up, the
doors that opened for launching the missile are about 30-40 feet above.
The silo is probably about 50 feet across, and the water level is about
30 feet below. They've added a staircase for getting down to the water,
and at the bottom of the stairs is a floating dive platform. Mark briefed
us on the divesite and how to prepare for the dive. Since it's at 2400
feet, it is an altitude dive, and there are no lights below the surface,
so it's technically a night dive, as well. Add to that the depth (130
feet max) and the water temp (my computer showed 57 deg.) and you've got
an advanced dive that people need to be prepared for. As an added bonus,
there were two small snakes, a grass snake and a small rattler, who had
found their way down to the water level and were curled up on a ledge
at the side of the silo. We were told not to worry, since they had worked
pretty hard to get out of the cold water, they were not going to be getting
back in it any time soon. Since there wasn't anything for them to eat
down there, they wouldn't be long-term residents of the place. That was
another interesting fact we learned about the silo.
Since
it's absolutely pitch black in there once the electric lights are turned
off, there is nothing living in there. The water is free of algae or other
life forms, and since there's nothing at the bottom of the food chain,
there aren't any higher life forms in there either, unless they slip in
for a short time, as our scaly friends had. After being briefed, we went
back to the crew's quarters and started assembling equipment. Folks worked
their way to the dive platform, and started getting in the water in buddy
pairs. The first dives started around 10:45. It was really interesting
once several divers were underwater. Their bubbles looked and sounded
like a giant glass of champagne. Mark told us that the bubbles coming
to the surface even generate a half knot current that can make you drift
around the surface. A little bit about the water. It's groundwater that
has seeped into the silo. When the missile site was operational, they
pumped the water out, but as soon as they stopped the pumps, water began
seeping in. Since it is groundwater, it does gradually move through the
silo, filtering through the walls back into the water table. The water
we dove in is not the same water that will be there next week. It's fairly
clear, but I would put the viz at about 30 feet. From one side of the
silo, I could not make out the other side while underwater. 
We
hauled our gear and ourselves back up the staircase to the staging area
swapped out tanks and discussed our dives during the surface interval.
One thing we learned quickly is that with all of the stairs involved,
you didn't make more trips than absolutely necessary off of the level
that you were on at the time. After one and half to two hour surface intervals,
we began making our way back into the water about 1:00 pm. Another thing
we learned was that it was more pleasant to have fewer divers in the water
at any one time, so we tried to limit it to two buddy teams at a time
on the second dive. This time, most people had a max depth of around 50
- 60 feet, where the inertial guidance room was, and the dives were a
little shorter. We took some more pics and swam around at 50 feet. One
interesting thing was that even though we were swimming in a circle, since
it was so big and we couldn't see the other side, it almost felt like
you were swimming in a straight line. Now I know how a fish in an aquarium
feels! We only had about a 20 minute dive since we ran out of new pictures
to take and were also starting to feel the effects of the cold water.
After getting back up to the staging area, we loaded up our gear and began
lugging it up to the parking area. We had the option of coming back to
dive again on Sunday, but after two dives, everyone felt they had seen
and done everything we wanted to do, so we opted out of Sunday. We took
some more pictures & videos of the silo, thanked Mark for his gracious
hospitality, and headed back to the hotel, making a stop in Coronado's
Camp for some burgers along the way.