Bingham Canyon

I saw this on TV the other night and thought, "We've been there" so I dug this one out, or three and bashed it together for a blip.

This is the truly vast Bingham Canyon Mine, near Salt Lake City in Utah. It is the biggest man made hole on our planet; and you can actually see the moon from it. (Sorry I think that's funny)

Many other more obscure and rare metals are extracted but primarily very low grade copper ore is extracted here and is transported -after being concentrated- to a similarly massive copper smelter a few miles away.

Our friends and, former neighbours D and M, invited us out in the summer of 2010 and we had a great holiday there. Up until they left our respective yougest sons were best pals. It was a real wrench when they left particularly for this reason.

D an M really looked after us well and we got a great insight to Utah life, much more so than if we had gone as pure tourists. On the day this image was taken the temp was approaching 100 deg f.