Paul, Rob, Dan, Mark, and myself met up with Gene and his two Divemasters, Brent and larry at Judy's good food on Hwy 26 for some breakfast and coffee to talk Silo diving. Gene made us a really nice 3-ring binder with pictures, maps and literature on the silo that was built some time between 1945-1950 to protect ourselves from attack during the COLD WAR. After a nice briefing and great food, we drove about 5 miles through a grave yard of old farm equipment to find a 30" tube sticking out of the ground, that was our entrance to the silo, where the 50 degree crystal clear water waited for our entry. it took about an hour to stage our gear, Dan and Mark to set up camera gear and dawn our drysuits. It was really cool to lower our gear down the shaft and then lower our selves down to follow. If you have a waist larger than 36" you most likely better sit this dive out, as there is no way you could fit your Fat ass through this tube
I could hear my doubles scraping the shaft the whole way down the tube to the totally dark base of the entrance, dark is an understatement. we loaded our stages and bailouts on this kayak that gene stores at the base of the ladder for a gear shuttle. once we were in the shaft there was and the gear was dawned and kayak was loaded we lined up single file to make the 30 minute walk in waste deep water to the silo itself. there were many obstacles to climb over and hurdle and dodge on the walk, my shins show these obstacles today. Holes in cat walks, pipes to crawl over and jagged metal to tear your suit as Paul found out, this is a brutal dive on gear. once we were above the silo tube it was go time. imagine a concrete tube about 40 feet across with a square elevator shaft inside, thats what the silo was like. it was only 108 ffw tot he silty floor and the vis was like a swimming pool. there were stairs, and scatter shields and launch platforms and signs and danger high voltage warnings all over the walls. it was great, and to know that very few people have been here since it was flooded was an added bonus. I racked up about 10 minutes of deco and used 34% as a deco gas, because it also seemed to be a good bailout or spare gas for my fellow CCr buddies. the silo was pretty entertaining and gave me my fix for submerged broken metal. it is defiantly not a dive for everyone, takes some strength and balance just to get to the silo its self. if you cant lift you doubles out of your car to get filled at the shop don't dive this, or use a singles rig like others usually do. We were the first group of tech divers to do this silo dive, first doubles in the silo and first CCR divers too. DCS films will have a great video of the silo dive, control room, and sleeping quarter too. it took about 2 hours total for the first dive, that includes the walk in and the walk out. we dived silo # 2 and silo #3, as silo one is not safe and full of asbestos foam that was used to insulated the steam pipes throughout the chambers. this was a great dive and very challenging to get to the silo, once in the silo it was pretty standard, nothing that a diver with good buoyancy couldn't handle, but again if you cant walk with your gear 1600 feet out of the water this isn't for you. there were times that I had to crouch down to let the load off my shoulders, and I am a fairly strong legged person, I have no problem lugging around a set of 130's, but boy was this a long walk.
The dive masters were great people and Gene was great to talk to, he has many plans for this guided tour of the Titan Missile silo and I suggest that some of you check this out, but be ready to work for this rewarding dive. this ain't Cove 2
My favorite part was the 100 free fall in the crystal clear water to the base of the silo to find a spring loaded floor, to absorb the shock of bombs hitting the station. these coil springs were about 12" in diameter and about 12" tall the steel that made up the coils were about 3/4" thick, really cool to see.
the silo itself had 140 people living in it and running the place at one time, kinda tight quarter to live in, but made for a wonderful dive with some great dive buddies. the DM's stayed at the top of the silo for the dive, they came to 40ffw to see what we were up to at the bottom, but were not really into the deep dive, as they have seen it many times before.
vis was about 60 feet throughout the dive and there were many doors and rooms to swim through in the control room really, great, some areas were so tight I had to unclip my stage (Al 80) and push it through ahead of me and then reclip it and continue the dive. All you need is an adv. cert for this dive, but i do suggest you are in good physical shape as the climb out up the shaft on a 20 foot ladder frozen with 1/2" diameter steps with doubles on was by no means easy, hole shit it hurt my feet to have all that weight on those thin ladder rungs.
Hope you all enjoyed this write up and contact Gene for a guided tour of the Silo. I'm sure others will chime in to add to my post, it was great.
MDS will be producing a video of the silo and it will be on Gene's website to help get you all jacked up to do the dive. Check it out, its worth it, although it was lacking life, i just love the huge rock fish on deep wrecks, and missed those.
BJ
Not to mention just fun to dive with. 
this is a div e right up your alley, but i do understand opting out due to the lengthy walk and heavy lifting, but you have a pretty tight crew, i bet one of them would lug your gear up the ladder for you, and once in the water with you being shorter than I, I bet the water would take some of the weight off your shoulders, you should check this out Lynne, its only a 30 minute walk. 
with water and drink it, not snort the powder directly from the packet, right? 
