The drive up Middle Canyon
East of Tooele Off Vine Street Oquirrh Mountains
The whole trip starts on Main Street. Main Street through Tooele is State Route 36, and Vine Street crosses it downtown. Turn east on Vine and drive it out of town, and after about a mile and a third the street runs out of pavement grid and becomes Middle Canyon Road, climbing into the mouth of the canyon. That is the entire navigation: east on Vine until Vine becomes the canyon.
The lower canyon is a genuinely pretty mountain drive on good pavement. The road winds up through Gambel oak and then into maple and fir, with the creek beside it and picnic turnouts on both sides. It gains elevation quickly, so the temperature drops as you climb, and on a hot valley afternoon that alone is a reason locals point the car up here. This lower, paved stretch is where most of the canyon's picnic and camp sites are, and it is the part that families use on an ordinary summer evening.
Keep climbing and the pavement carries you several miles up before it ends. Everything changes at that point, which the next two entries are about: the payoff at the overlook, and the dirt road that gets you the last stretch to it.
The details
The Oquirrh Overlook and the Bingham mine
Near the crest The view west into the pit The payoff
Near the top of the canyon the road reaches an overlook, and this is the reason the drive is worth doing. From the rail you look down into Kennecott's Bingham Canyon mine, one of the largest open pit mines on earth, a terraced hole in the mountain so big it is hard to take in scale. The Utah Geological Survey puts the pit at roughly three quarters of a mile deep and more than two miles across. From up here the haul trucks on the benches read as specks.
The geography is worth getting straight, because it is the whole point of this vantage. The mine is dug into the far, eastern side of the Oquirrh Mountains, which means it physically sits in Salt Lake County, not Tooele County. Middle Canyon climbs the Tooele side of the same range and tops out looking over into it. Kennecott runs its own visitor overlook down on the Salt Lake side; from the west, this rail at the head of Middle Canyon is the public look into the pit. That is a genuinely unusual thing to have a short drive from your own Main Street.
Bring a jacket even in July. The overlook sits high on the crest of the Oquirrhs, the wind funnels over the top, and it is cooler and breezier than the valley you left forty minutes ago. Mornings are clearest before the afternoon haze builds over the Salt Lake Valley beyond.
The details
The dirt miles and Butterfield Pass
Above the pavement Dry weather road Out and back
Here is the part the travel blogs skip. The pavement does not run all the way to the overlook. The lower canyon is paved, but somewhere around six or seven miles up the hard surface ends, and the final stretch to the overlook and the pass is graded dirt. In dry weather it is fine for a normal car driven with a little care, and plenty of ordinary sedans make it up. When it is wet it turns to washboard and mud, and that is when high clearance and patience earn their keep. Trailers and long RVs should not go past the end of the pavement.
Above the overlook the road continues over Butterfield Pass and, in good conditions, drops down Butterfield Canyon on the Salt Lake side toward Herriman, which makes the full route a scenic crossing of the Oquirrhs. Do not build a day around driving through, though. Snow closes the pass for the cold half of the year, and a flood washout has closed the connection between the two counties with no set date to reopen. The Tooele side and the overlook stay open when the pass itself is barricaded, so the safe plan is an out and back from Tooele, with the through drive treated as a bonus only when current road status says it is open.
For the Salt Lake side of the same crossing, we have a separate guide to Butterfield Canyon from Herriman, including its own open or closed reality.
The details
Picnic sites and camping in the canyon
The lower, paved canyon County recreation area Summer and fall
The overlook gets the attention, but for most Tooele residents Middle Canyon is simpler than that: it is the close, shaded canyon you go to on a summer evening. Tooele County runs it as a recreation area, with dozens of developed and undeveloped campsites strung along the road, a group site, fire rings, picnic tables and vault toilets. The sites sit on both sides of the canyon road in the trees, so you can pull off for an hour with a cooler or stay the night.
A gate at the canyon collects a day use vehicle fee, the same county parks system that runs Settlement Canyon on the other side of town, and a season pass covers both canyons. Camping runs more than a day visit. The exact fees move by season, so check the current numbers before you go rather than trusting a figure you read online.
Like the rest of the canyon, the camping season runs roughly late spring through the end of October and then closes for winter. The lower, paved sites come in first and are the most family friendly; the farther up you go, the more primitive and the later they open.
Before you go
- Bring cash or a card for the gate fee, and confirm the current day use and camping rates first.
- The shaded lower sites fill on warm weekends; a weeknight is quieter.
- Pack out what you pack in; the canyon has vault toilets but limited services.
- The overlook is a separate errand up top; the camping is the lower, paved canyon.
Deer, the east bench and when to go
The canyon mouth Seasonal Best midsummer to fall
The mouth of Middle Canyon is Tooele's east bench, the last band of streets where the town runs up against the Oquirrh foothills. In the cold months mule deer drop down off the mountain to winter on that bench, and they are ordinary company on the quiet streets nearest the canyon. It is a plain sign of how close the range sits to town: the animals that summer up by the overlook spend their winters a few blocks below it.
For the drive itself, the window is the warm half of the year. The canyon opens in late spring once the high road clears and closes with the first serious snow around November, so the overlook is a June through October trip, not a year round one. Midsummer and early fall are the best of it, and the last couple of weeks of the season can catch the maples and aspens turning on the way up.
Go early in the day when you can. Mornings give the clearest air over the pit and the coolest driving on the exposed upper road, and they leave you room to turn around if the dirt is wetter than you expected.
