The Greenhill Mines

Located in the Crowsnest Pass, the Greenhill mine is a place that first grabbed my attention several years ago when I was passing by on a motorcycle trip. The giant tipple is visible from the highway and stands proudly, overlooking the town of Blairmore.

The Greenhill Mine was first opened for operation in 1913, and had peak production in 1946, employing 500-600 men. The mine closed in 1958.

While on a large exploration trip with my friends Bobby and Jeremy, we stopped here on the second day. It was a simple entry with only one fence to hop. The structure was solid steel and concrete with the beginning sections made of wood, that had now partially collapsed. Walking through the rafters of the collapsed roof, we made our way inside the tipple. The inside was amazing with thus far, the coolest coal car track system I have ever seen. It was one of those buildings that you had to first explore and then later take the camera through because it was too exciting to just simply begin photographing. It was the kind of place that you walk through and can't help but imagine what it was like in its heyday.

The top level had a main track leading into a car tipper, which inverted the coal cars one at a time and dumped the coal below, where it would be sorted and processed. After the car was empty, it was ejected from the tipper and rolled down a slope either to the left of right, up and down a return ramp, and then to a towing conveyor that pulled the cart back to the top again so it could be returned to the mine.

The structure was quite old and already had many signs of decay. You had to be careful walking around on the wooden boards near the beginning and sides of the structure. Much of the wood was rotting. On my second visit to the structure I saw an owl take flight after noticing me. The most startling thing about the owl flying away was that where it was perched, the parallel wooden railway supports, were crumbling merely from the owl taking flight. Not exactly the best place to climb for that 'perfect shot.'

The giant tipple had enough goodies inside it to keep a photographer busy for hours, but the rest of the property also had its share of fascinating buildings. The old shower house was also a storage building for core samples. Literally tons of core samples were all staked on top of each other, filling a room about the size of a community hall. The building was cold, moist and had water dripping from its roof and running in small rivers around the rows and rows of stacked core sample boxes. Beautiful. The building was unlike any place I have been before. It was interesting to be inside a dead-still building with nothing but tiny creeks of water dripping and flowing. It seemed a prime example of something I have grown to learn with each adventure. Over time, nature always wins. The persistence of wind, water and sun can bring any building to its knees.

Walking around the property, there were random small buildings everywhere. A lot of them had great signs of vandalism and many were so scrapped and destroyed that they were neither recognizable in purpose, or worthy of a picture. I would have to say the buildings most worth seeing are the tipple, the wash house and the mine entrances. Exploring any of the other buildings went something like this... "What's in there? (peek inside) ...Huh. (leave)." Of course there were a few slight exceptions, as some of the buildings had hidden gems.

The mine entrances had covered roofs that ran about 1000' along where the coal car tracks used to go in and out. The roof had hundreds of holes through it that almost felt like a disco when you walked through, because of the sunlight spilling into each hole and casting tiny dots of light over your body. The floor inside the entrance shelters had a small creek flowing through it that's source was the mine entrance. Water seemed to be a persistent theme in most of the buildings.

The Greenhill mine is a site that I wouldn't consider 'risky' to explore. It obviously had it's physical risks like collapsed roofs and exposed sharp things, but no-one seemed to care that we were there. A curious photographer once approached the main building while we were inside, getting some exterior pictures but not entering. There were also some teenagers shooting off pellet guns near the mine entrance, who quickly packed up and left as we came by. Aside from that, nothing gave us the notion of consequence for being there. Signs warning against trespassing were broken or paintballed and the drive up to the site was extremely worn from people being there.

A pair of steel-toed boots, a camera and a friendly smile will keep you safe from almost every hazard you should encounter... ...unless you're afraid of getting dirty ...and abandoned places ...and owls.