Pipeline

Dogs Leashed

E-Bikes Not Allowed

This trail begins at the Wolf Road Woods parking lot and heads west via wide rolling hills to a 4-way cross intersection. The trail that crosses Pipeline is called Ho Chi Minh and runs north-south.

Continuing west on Pipeline will bring you to a tall grass section and a 4-way Y-pattern intersection. The far right leg is Pipeline North and is the most direct way to Site A where the world's first nuclear reactor is buried. The far left leg is Pipeline South and runs deeper in the woods parallel to the main Pipeline trail. The center leg is considered the main Pipeline trail and jogs south before turning back west.

The next intersection will be a 4-way intersection with the right leg heading deeper into the Old Argonne toward Pipeline North, Old Argonne Road and Site A. The left leg is the western end of Pipeline South. The center leg continues to the end of Pipeline, which intersects at the top end of Dynamite Road.

Site A in Old Argonne is the location where the first two nuclear reactors are buried. The original CP-1 reactor built at the University of Chicago was dismantled and rebuilt here and renamed CP-2. Nuclear reactor CP-3 was also built on this site. Both reactors were dismantled and the concrete shells were buried by digging a hole between the reactors and using explosives to tip the reactor shells into the hole.