Steve and I had toured this mine 20 years ago, and since we were so close, we wanted to marvel at it once again. WOW.

Rio Tinto Kennecott is a fully integrated mining operation located just outside Salt Lake City. Kennecott is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto. For more than 110 years, Kennecott has been mining and processing minerals from the rich orebody of the Bingham Canyon Mine.
The Bingham Canyon area boomed during the first years of the twentieth century, as rich copper deposits in the canyon began to be developed, and at its peak the city had approximately 15,000 residents. The success of the local mines eventually proved to be the town's undoing, however: by the mid-twentieth century the huge open-pit Bingham Canyon Mine began encroaching on the community, and by the late twentieth century the Bingham townsite had been devoured by the mine. No trace of the former town remains today.

We were shuttled to an incredible overlook where we learned more about the process involved in mining copper.



The last time we were here, we had learned that after the Great Wall of China, this is the second largest manmade item that can be seen from space. It is truly massive.
Work happens here 24/7 and every day of the year. It is a mesmerizing undertaking that impressed us immensely.

Until this tour, I never fully appreciated copper like I should have. The process was thoroughly explained which added so much to the phenomenon that is the Rio Tinto Kennecott Copper Mine. Wow.