Bingham Copper Mine

I have been curious about the copper mine for a long time.  I knew they did some kind of tour out there and it sounded like something different than we have ever seen, so one afternoon we did an outing to visit the Bingham Copper Mine.

I think I was more fascinated by the mine than my kids.  I loved standing at the overlook watching the big working trucks and machines do their different jobs.  There were several huge dump trucks (you can see at least four of them in the picture above) that would stop by a huge backhoe kind of thing that would load up the dump truck and then it make its way ever so slowly back up the main road that cuts through the middle of the crater.  Then another dump truck would show up to the same spot and get filled, and the process would continue on and on.

This is one of the tires on those huge dump trucks.  Each dump truck has six of these tires.

Inside of the visitors center was this picture that Garrett was thrilled with!

Garrett stood in front of this case of model working/construction machines and he said, "Can we get one of these?"

The mine was a fun half day outing.  It only costs $5 to drive up the road to the mine.  The rest is free.  There's a short movie to watch at the visitor's center as well that talks all about the Kennecott copper mining process, how it is mined, what the copper is used for, etc.  We liked the tour so much that we went back a couple weeks later when my sister and her family came.