US-60 between Miami and Superior cuts through one of the most visually dramatic mining landscapes in the American West. The Final Pass section of the road passes through the heart of the Miami copper mining district, with open-pit workings carved into the red and ochre hillsides on both sides of the highway. Terraced benches rise hundreds of feet above the road, and the sheer scale of what decades of industrial extraction can do to a landscape is sobering and impressive in equal measure.
There is a pull-off near the top of the pass that gives you a clear view across the pits toward the concentrator and smelter infrastructure. The colours are remarkable — the different oxides of copper turn the rock faces green, blue, and turquoise against the overall red of the Arizona desert. Early morning or late afternoon light brings the colours out best.
The drive through the pass is also the practical route between Phoenix and the eastern Arizona highlands, so you will pass it anyway if you are continuing east toward the White Mountains.