Along the banks of the Meuse River, in Liège, Belgium, stands the most impressive industrial ruin that we've ever seen.
Blast Furnace B.
In the past, the steel industry in Liège formed one of the largest industrial complexes in the world.
With dozens of blast furnaces, mills, power plants, coal mines, and cokeries all integrated together.
Today, however, most of what remains lies dormant- and this blast furnace is the last of its kind left standing.
Now, join us as we venture inside and discover what remains of this steel making behemoth.
Getting to the factory wasn't going to be simple.
The main entrances are supposedly under video surveillance, so we had to devise a route to enter undetected.
We began by making our way through some thick vegetation, which we soon found out was full of thorns and stinging nettle.
Then we had to quickly move through an area of active train tracks.
"This is gonna work, there's a hole right here."
Eventually, we headed up into one of the conveyor belts, which would hopefully take us directly into the factory.
"There's a train going by right now."
"The train drives right through the steel mill."
After following the conveyor belt for a quarter mile, we had finally made it to the steel mill.
The blast furnace was the beating heart of this steel mill, where raw iron ore would've been melted down into pure pig iron.
Naturally, that's where we decided to head first.
"Yes, this is it!"
"This is my first time being up close with an abandoned blast furnace."
"This is just the bottom of it- it goes all the way up."
"Looks like a lot of stuff has been removed, probably by scrappers."
"That is crazy."
This ring of pipes is where extremely hot air, upwards of 1000 degrees Celsius, would've been injected into the blast furnace.
"This is some crazy looking robotic... pneumatic arm here."
"It's pretty long."
"Yeah."
"These are the controls for the giant arm."
"Here's another one of those arms."
These robotic arms would've been used to drill into the furnace when the liquid iron was ready to be extracted.
"This is just insane to look at, there's so much detail."
"It's like a sculpture."
"This is really cool right here."
"Holy shit, that's cool!"
"Heh, slide down it."
"Oh my God. This is basically- I don't know what they would've brought up here- either the coke, or the iron ore, or something."
"The ingredients to make the steel would've been brought- hoisted up here, to the top of the blast furnace."
"It's basically just a giant soup pot... for making molten steel."
"We've got ourselves a pretty big door right here."
"This motor probably would've powered the big lift-"
"Mhm."
"It takes everything to the top of the blast furnace."
"Oh, this run of pipes here is what leads to the spiderweb thing."
"Uh, yeah, these look old."
"Yeah, they're flexing a little bit."
"Yup, they're flexing a lot."
"Holy shit."
"It's a long way to go."
"We've got some vegetation taking over here, too."
"All the way up here."
"It makes you feel like you're on ground level, but, heh, you're not even close."
"And then there's all that too...which is insane."
"Wow, there's so many trees growing back in here."
"There are trees on the belt."
"No way, that's awesome!"
"Yeah, it's growing on a little piece of dirt on the belt."
"Wow."
"That's really- that's really cool."
"There's a lot of overgrowth on this walkway here, it's cool."
"It says this was abandoned in 2011, but this is a lot more growth than what I'd think for that."
"Yeah... maybe it was shut down earlier than that?"
The blast furnace was, in fact, abandoned in 2011.
Nature wasted no time in taking over the abandoned structure.
"Look, these are all dumpers- hoppers, I mean."
"You can see how much is growing down there though."
"Yeah, it's like a little forest, each one."
"Look, even the bars up here, each one has a layer of grass on it- and weeds growing."
"This is actually so serene up here, we're getting into the Golden Hour."
"Here, if we wanna get out from in-between these two things, we should go out right here."
"Alright."
"Otherwise we might get stuck in here."
"Look, there's conveyors going that way, and that way..."
"In every direction."
"And the thing about these conveyors is that they don't just lead all through this factory- they lead all through the city."
"Like, we followed them on satellite images for a long time. They connected all the different factories here back in the day."
"Yeah, we could just walk in one direction, wind up in like three different factories."
"It is so dusty in here- look at this! It's covering the support beams."
"Jeez... I don't know, I'm gonna get outta here."
With the remaining daylight dwindling, we decided we should try to make it to the top of the blast furnace.
The highest point of the structure is roughly 280 feet off the ground.
"Yeah, it's around 9PM, the sun is starting to go down."
"Now might be a good time to climb it- we can watch the sunset from up there."
"Hopefully it's dark enough that we won't get spotted."
"...Or if we do get spotted, it's not by anyone who cares."
"Why is it like we're walking through a forest when we're on metal like a hundred feet in the air?"
"It's crazy how the plants found their way all the way up here."
"Okay, time to climb the blast furnace."
What we're now sitting on top of are the cowper stoves, which were used to heat up air before injecting it into the blast furnace.
"We're getting high up now."
At this level, the iron ore and coke would've been dumped into the furnace.
"This is the top of the lift."
"And here's a good shot down the lift."
"Can see all the way, straight down it."
"We might've gotten thwarted by our long time nemesis- the bees!"
"There's a few of 'em up there."
"Always swarms of 'em."
"Oh, I'm pretty alergic to them, I don't know about Bryan, you allergic?"
"I'd rather not get bit."
"Ah, we come in peace."
"Ah, we got to speak their language! These are French bees."
"Bonjour!"
"Omelette du fromage!"
"Are they swarming your head yet?"
"No! Omelette du fromage!"
"We came all the way across the Atlantic..."
"I don't know how I feel about these spiral staircases."
"Let me go then."
"I'm a little sketched out by that."
"Oh, I'm extremely sketched out by it."
"There's no real support, just this long pole."
"I'm not doing it."
"You're not doing it?"
"I don't think so..."
(Ominous orchestral music plays)
"A bee just buzzed my nose- or a wasp."
"Just don't look down and we're Gucci... just don't look down... I'm saying stupid words I'd never say because I'm nervous. Sorry for using the word Gucci."
"Okay, I'm getting swarmed. I will get a quick picture then get the fuck out of here 'cause they're swarming me."
"This is high enough for me, I am satisfied now."
(Nervous laugh)
"Yeah, my fear of heights has kicked in- I'm still human."
I headed back down to a more stable, less wasp-infested platform to enjoy the rest of the sunset.
"Man, I'm actually getting goosebumps from how awesome it is to be up here right now."
"This is incredible."
"It's hard to believe places like this exist."
This was one of my favorite moments I've experienced when exploring.
Four years ago, when Bryan and I started our YouTube channel, we never expected it would lead to much, yet here we were- in the middle of a 45 day road trip across Europe,
standing on top of the most incredible abandoned factory we could ever imagine.
This was the moment it all sank in.
I felt so thankful and fortunate for all the twists and turns in my life that brought me to this point.
This is what I really wanted to be doing.
It's not exactly everyone's idea of a dream come true, but it was for us.
With nightfall approaching, we began to make our way back down.
But this exploration isn't over yet. We'll be back tomorrow to see even more of the steel mill.
(Ambient music plays)
On the second day of our exploration, the weather was much more overcast, setting a completely different mood over the factory.
"Here you can see one of the conveyors that leaves the facility and kinda just starts going across the whole city."
"Let's not leave the facility."
"No, haha"
(Train noise)
"That train went right underneath us."
"This place probably has miles of conveyor belts total."
"We're getting into one of the larger buildings now."
"Gonna watch where I'm stepping."
"Holy crap!"
"This looks like a rolling mill where they would've turned the steel into flat sheets."
"Oh, how are we gonna get through here?"
"This reminds me of like, in video games, where there's an invisible wall you can clearly get past, but you still bump into it."
"Guess we haven't unlocked this area yet."
"Huh, on this side of the sign it'd been 90 decibels, and on that side it would've been 85 decibels."
"No, what happened is, they changed it, and one of them fell off."
"Oh, that's more likely."
"These are the rail cars that would've been used to move the molten steel around."
"Strange shape."
"Yeah, they'd line the inside with brick to prevent it from melting."
(Ambient music plays)
The next building we entered was the power plant.
Unfortunately, it looked like most of the equipment had already been picked apart, but it was still cool to see some of the individual components.
"Wow, these are cool looking."
"They've seen better days though, that's for sure."
"I think if the needle was anywhere not in the white area, then it would've been bad."
"Oh, yeah. Found the control room."
"There's a good look at the point where the active train tracks dip under the facility."
"First time seeing the exact spot where it goes under."
(Ambient music plays)
(Explosion noises)
In 2016, nearby Blast Furnace 6 was demolished.
This made Blast Furnace B the last one standing in the Liege Valley.
It's hard to give a practical reason to keep this massive hunk of rusting steel around.
The facility is too destroyed to ever operate again, and the costs of ever turning this into a safe tourist attraction would likely be hard to justify.
To many locals, the factory is just a sour reminder of the economic recession.
However, it's also a reminder of how their city evolved.
It's a reminder of their parents and grandparents, who spent their lives working in these cathedrals of steel.
Sure, you could write about it in all the history books you want, but without a physical reminder, people will eventually forget or stop caring.
And I think that would be a real shame.
