Ryan Mishler's Explorations: Trojan Nuclear Power Plant Cooling Tower Implosion May 2006

In early 2006, it was announced that the cooling tower at the former Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, outside Rainer, Oregon, was being demolished by dynamite implosion. After some discussion with friends, we decided to go up and camp on the Washington side of the river, in the Kalama area, and watch as the tower came tumbling down.
The implosion was to happen on Sunday morning at exactly 7am. We elected to head up two days early (Friday evening) so we'd have all day Saturday to find out vantage point. We camped at a campground/RV resort along the banks of the Kalama river. It was a pleasant campground, the tent camping area was nice and grassy with trees spread around to keep out too much direct sunlight. We got up the next morning and screwed around a bit in the campground. Don't worry, we didn't go too fast.

We quickly found out that the price we'd paid the previous night was actually about 1/5th of what we should've paid. If we'd paid for the second night it would've cost us over $100 dollars. Totally not worth it. We decided to pack up our stuff and find someplace else to camp. Someplace free. While driving around the hills around Kalama, we were able to find one nice view of the tower.

Eventually we found a spot down a dead end road that was down next to the train tracks. We set up then headed into town to use the showers at a riverside park. While we were there, I was lucky enough to catch a passing train.

That night, we hung out around the fire and were serenaded by the sounds of passing trains. I think the Railroad was trying to get as many trains through before the shut-down of the line the next morning.

The next morning, we hit the road about 5am, even though we were only 20 minutes from our view point. We were fortunate enough to get a parking spot, there wasn't much room left along the road, and a spot along the guardrail where we could view the tower.

The property owners next to the road spent several hours that morning trying to keep people on the road side of the barrier but finally gave up as you can see.

The sun was in and out that morning and while we hoped for sun during the implosion, we weren't quite that lucky, though we did get some about fifteen minutes before.

Right on cue at 7am, the call came out over my scanner that they were ready and a countdown was initiated. And then, without hearing anything, the tower started to come down.