Hiking: Mine 2b

Mine 2b is within the town boundaries and is one of the few places you can hike to without avalanche or other survival gear. It is located between Nybyen and the town and you can see it even in the dark as it has lighting. For most people its the first place they visit when they get here as its not too far away and is a fairly short adventure.

You can see it in this picture as the blob of light halfway up the mountain. I went up with Ryan and Lloyd a few weeks ago when we had about 4 hours of light on our side. The way up is steep and we had to take a few breaks on the way

This is about half way up the mountain

This is the view of the town from the mine (you can see that we're losing light already). The place is open to the weather and has a little step you have to use to hop up into the main area. In this area there is a box with letters in and a guest book

At the end of this room is a staircase covered in snow that leads to another steeper staircase leading up to the next area

Most of these photos are from Ryan, it was pitch black in there and Lloyd was the only one with a headlamp so he had to go first and Ryan used his camera as a light. At the top of this staircase was a massive room with cart tracks on the floor and an old bridge which we decided to cross (not the best idea, it turns out you aren't meant to cross it really) but we got some great photos from it.

 View from the railing

 View of Nybyen from the bridge

  

Pictures from my phone of Lloyd 

Got a few of Ryan as well

 Once we got across the bridge we were still in the big room, just on the other side. The whole room circles around so the bridge is actually pointless to go across, but it was an interesting few minutes at least. This area has gaps where its open to the elements and its completely frozen inside and has great ice formations due to this:

The floor is covered in ice so you had to be careful where you stepped. This area is visited quite often by people and they've signed the walls in chalk

We added to the signatures.

There is another area above this room, the stairs to it aren't inside, they are outside and have a small metal railing to help you. We had basically lost daylight by this point so we decided not to go up to the last bit. If we go up again we'll go up to the top and i'll put up pictures on here of the last room. 

We started heading down and some of these pictures might show what the staircase looks like:

This was one of the lesser covered areas, some parts of the staircase were completely covered in snow and the only way you could get up was by following the footwells other people had made. 

This is the view we had when we got back out, it was basically dark, and it was around 3pm in the afternoon at the latest. This was 3 or 4 weeks ago now, the light is much better so we will probably go again soon. 

The best part of this was the trip down. I had a little sled with me and we all took turns using it to get down. The trip up took maybe 40 minutes, the trip down took us maybe 10. 

This place is a fantastic place to visit. Its a cultural heritage site and you can see how the mines used to operate, There is another room that I didn't put up a picture from which was a room about half way up the long staircase that had belts for moving coal and pushing it down a chute. 

Tips: Bring a headlamp. Even if you go when its light outside, it wont be light everywhere inside.

         It's icy as hell in there so be careful, I went over in one of the rooms trying to explore

         Bring a sled to get down :) 

       

- Miriam