291- Bingham Copper Mine

So *lasterday* we had our fun trip to the Bingham Copper Mine. It is the largest open pit mine in the world... a giant whole in the ground! What made our trip more fun and personal is that Wayne's granddad Boucher drove a haul train at the mine until he was 74 years old and two of Gordon's uncles were born there in the little, now defunct, town of Bingham Canyon.

This is one of the tires from the trucks they now use to haul the ore. Sam, the tall man closest to the tire is a good 6' and he is dwarfed by this 12' 5" tire. Each tire cost $25,000! Makes replacing tires on your car sound quite reasonable, doesn't it?

Gordon, Andy, Laurel, Lizzy, Sam, Harlan, Sammy, Kade, Sarah

I know you may think this is one of the *edited* photos... nope! That is one of the ginormous haul truck compared to a full-sized crew cab pickup!



So how does one fill one of these ginormous trucks? Silly, with a ginormous scooper! You notice that that same full-sized pickup would fit in the scoop (two or three times).



They told us that each of these ginormous truck can hold between 260-325 TONS of ore in a load... that's a lot of rock. I love how the driver is just a tiny dot on the top right of the truck. And see the ladder that the driver has to climb to get to his cat walk! Yikes!