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Bellevue Underground Mine Tour
           
A special Boxing Day tour of the Bellevue Mine in the Crowsnest Pass Before entering the mine you'll need to suit up with a hardhat, miners light & a poncho Our guide Lenny, a life-long miner, starts our tour at the tunnel system map, which stretched end-to-end would reach to Calgary It's an unassuming entrance to the Bellevue Mine, established in 1929 by West Canadian Collieries
DANGER Beware of Bumping Cars; Safety First at the Bellevue Underground Mine a little way down the Bellevue Underground Mine the flat grey colour gives way to ... a rich display of ice formations in the Bellevue Underground Mine A single drop at a time ... these ice stalagmites form from the bottom up; Bellevue Underground Mine
The water drops freeze on contact forming a vertical column with no splashing While most ground icicles grow in a straight vertical fashion, a moving drop source can throw a twist into things Ice crystals of various forms cover the ceilings throughout the Bellevue Underground Mine This coal car carried two tons of coal at a time at the Bellevue Underground Mine
The coal was mined in large chunks which were later broken down at the Colleries The ceilings are the canvas for a colourful display of leeching minerals ... mainly iron oxide the icicles themselves take on the colour of the leeching minerals Tip #36: When wearing a miners headlamp, avoid looking directly at someone while talking
Think they had it easy in the old days? Try your hand drilling an explosives hole These old coal car tracks lead deep into the nearly 200 km of tunnels in the Bellevue Underground Mine The sloped re-enforcements give you an odd sense of vertigo Your left brain wants to make the wall vertical
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