If you've never observed an open pit gold mine, I recommend it. There's one about 2.5 hours from Denver in a place called Cripple Creek. It has a nice observation platform with a full view of pit operations located at (38.7551704, -105.1380732).<p>The feeling it instills is simultaneously awe and disgust. The scale is like nothing I have ever seen. An open wound on the earth that makes 30 foot tall bulldozers look like specks of dust with a huge pool of arsenic laced fluid at the bottom.<p>Overall I'm on the side of the chinchillas. When will we stop ravaging this planet in the name of greed?