We headed to Sundance today, not sure what we would find but I was of course looking for Robert Redford. Anyway, we found the Sundance Resort which is owned by Robert Redford but is no longer the site of the Sundance Film Festivals...those have been moved to Park City. We were kind of bummed but then we were walking around the grounds and found a store, restaurant and photo wall, so we were happy about that. Driving, we found a beautiful mountainous area that I am sure is a skiers mecca ! Take a look:
BINGHAM CANYON COPPER MINE
We read about this giant hole we needed to see, just happened to be on the way back from Sundance so we headed on over. WOW, it was a pretty amazing hole. When you look at if from the rim, which is the Visitor Center and as far as non-employees can go, it looks like a bunch of Tonka Trucks in action. As you learn more about it, you just have to take a second look to grasp the enormity of the task of mining for copper.
The Bingham Copper Mine is the largest man-made excavation on earth, over two and a half miles wide and three quarters of a mile deep. It covers 1,900 acres.
Two Empire State Buildings staked on top of each other would not reach the top of the mine.
The mine is so big, it can be seen by the space shuttle astronauts as they pass over the United States.
Can you see the trucks? That road is a 10% grade. The dump trucks travel at 13 MPH when full, and 20 MPH when empty.
You can read about the massive tires !
The size of all the equipment out there was pretty awesome ! This place was something I would not have thought about as interesting but it turned out to be pretty incredible ! I am glad we went, thats for sure, and Joe bought a book to learn more about it.
xxoo TML
