# Fort Ord, Central California - Nov 2011



## darkoptics (Mar 6, 2012)

Fort Ord was a U.S. Army post on Monterey Bay in central California and covered over 28,000 acres. 





It began life during the Mexican-American war in 1846, known then as Camp Ord and then became Fort Ord in 1917. The area made it ideal as an infantry training centre and it remained as one of the nations permanent army posts until 
September 1994 when it closed.
Fort Ord was one of the most attractive locations of any U.S. Army post, because of its proximity to the beach and California weather.

Today a large national park exists in the area and is open to the public for hiking and mountain biking, and the land with the barracks on it looks to be earmarked for development.



My day here was very varied, something for everyone here! the built up part of Fort Ord is quite big although the majority of the derelict buildings are the rows upon rows of wooden barracks 










The insides of these barracks were all trashed to some degree












I had a few locations that I wanted to seek out, the first was a traditional looking wooden church










The inside was a bit of a mess, but I had timed it just as the light through the window illuminated the broken organ in the middle of the floor







An olympic size swimming pool was next, I tried to find a part of this place that wasnt sprayed, it was quite colourful in there.

















A prison was in the area too, a concrete company had taken over the grounds and from what i could see, had used some of their product to block up the entrances. The watchtowers were still on the edge of the fences







There were a few warehouses dotted around as well, alot of them were covered in graf as well but some interesting places 
There was an old truck base as well which i wasnt expecting to find 































So if you've done San Francisco and the golden gate bridge, Alcatraz and you dont fancy the amazing California coastline or LA for that matter, then Fort Ord may be the day out for you.

Darren


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## Priority 7 (Mar 6, 2012)

Very nice indeed, oh to be urbexing in the States


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## nelly (Mar 6, 2012)

nice stuff fella, glad to see you have mindless graffiti moron chavs over there too


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## night crawler (Mar 7, 2012)

Great report but what is it with these mindless idiots who have to go round and trash a place :icon_evil


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## flyboys90 (Mar 7, 2012)

That must have been a dream posting for soldiers,thanks for sharing.


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## rossd001 (Mar 7, 2012)

Looks like a huge site.... Bet it took you a while to get round??


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## UrbanX (Mar 8, 2012)

Cheers for sharing, I've not seen or heard anythig of this before.

Stunning photography, just beautiful. Did you use a grad filter in the first one or darken it afterwards?


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## darkoptics (Mar 8, 2012)

Thanks for the comments, this was a pretty full on day, quite a large area although all the interesting stuff is fairly close together, saw a few other explorers there but it was very quiet apart from that. 
It would have been a great place to get posted if the camp was still going, sandwiched between LA and San Francisco - yes please!

UrbanX - the first one was infrared although shooting into the sun wasnt the best of ideas, had to do a bit of work on that one.

Darren


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