Click photo for larger version. Image courtesy of Kennecott Utah Copper.

The Colorado River spent 6 million years carving the Grand Canyon. It’s taken Utahans only a century to dig Kennecott’s Bingham Canyon Mine. Ok, so the Grand Canyon gets as deep as 6,000 feet and Bingham only reaches a bit past three-quarters of a mile. But consider this: The pit you see here used to be a mountain, which tacks on at least an extra 1,000 feet. We’re gaining on nature, and quickly.

In the latest issue of VIA magazine I’ve got a story on the open pit copper mine, which is the largest man-made excavation on Earth. Everything is oversize here, from the fleet of 80 haulage trucks taller than two-story houses and costing $2.8 million a piece to the 82 million gallons of water sprayed annually for dust control. And the mine runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Sound like a monumental waste? Take a look around you before you wish it closed—everything from fridge to phone works thanks to copper. Come to think of it, the story of copper mining, accelerating from the first urban electrification projects to today’s massive resource extractions, is the story of modern America. Perhaps that’s why this hole is a National Historic Landmark.

For more crazy details on just how big this operation is and to learn how it is we can turn a ton of rock into 13 pounds of copper sheeting, watch this video. Spoiler alert: it involves a five-mile conveyor belt.

I’m spending most of my time working as a contract editor at VIA these days, so my freelance writing has slowed down a bit and I haven’t had as much to report here. I’m enjoying seeing the other side of the writing game, though, and it’s giving me the opportunity to go after breathtaking travel destinations like this one.

I like to collect crap, and the best crap is free. Especially when it comes to you by chance and bears the marks of age and use. It’s this extra character that makes the objects heaped up at flea markets and on garbage days so intriguing. Assemblage artist Susan Danis told me that the local junkyard was one of her favorite places on Earth. I can see where she’s coming from. Over my desk I keep the scrap of fabric in this photo, which I cut from a broken lawn chair in the trash outside my building when I lived in Slovakia. Sentimental? Perhaps, but I also like to look at it and wonder what it’s been through. How many bottoms did it endure, and how many spilled bottles of kofola?

The beach is at the top of the list of places to make strange discoveries, and I had the fun of writing a mini-guide to great beachcombing spots on the northern Pacific coast for VIA magazine. It ran with Michael McRae’s story on turning up everything from 17th-century Spanish beeswax to thousands of lost Nike sneakers on the shores of Oregon.

State and national parks tend to have the nicest and most accessible beaches, but you can’t take home much of what you find on them since shells, rocks, and wood are all protected. I think the man-made objects are more interesting anyways: busted fishing tackle, random bottles, stray pieces of scuba gear. On the north coast, it’s popular to look for the glass floats that break free from Japanese fishing nets. They’re tough to snag in Oregon, but from this video it looks like they’re all over Alaska, if you have a plane to get out to remote spots.

The video is slow moving but beautiful. Eagles hang out on the beach, bear prints appear, a dog chases a seal and a fox, and a redhead blushes.