A really, REALLY big hole in the ground

As promised in my last blog, my intention upon leaving Phoenix was to stop in at Meteor Crater, Arizona. From the Highway, US-40, you can't really see anything, other than a sign, that would hint at what lies just 6 miles ahead. Turning off at exit 233 I could still see in my rear view mirror the snow-capped mountains towering over Flagstaff 40 miles away. but everywhere else all I could see was the arid, desolate plain of the high-mountain desert. There is a nice looking RV park right at the exit but I followed the signs and kept going down the paved road that leads to the Meteor Crater Visitors complex.The only way to see the actual crater is to pay the admission fee that gives you access to the rim overlooks so if you come by hoping for a quick easy free view of the crater you'll be disappointed.

Meteor Crater is privately owned by the Barringer Family and has been since Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer from Philadelphia, came to the area in 1902. Interested in the site as a potential source for mining iron ore he bought four placer mining claims giving him ownership of the two square miles containing the crater. I'm always suspicious of privately owned national landmarks but with Meteor Crater the family, in conjunction with the Bar T Bar Ranch that owns much of the surrounding lands, has done a nice job and the modern Visitors Center features a movie theatre, museum, gift shop and Subway restaurant for those that brought an appetite. There's a ten minute movie that explains how the crater formed (at first people thought it was volcanic rather than created by a meteor impact) and you can take a guided tour along a half-mile section of the crater rim or simply do a short stroll to the observation platforms right outside the Visitors Center. And no, you cannot hike to the bottom of the crater...

The crater was created in about 10 seconds when, about 50,000 years ago, a meteor 150 feet across, speeding through the earth's atmosphere at 26,000 mph, slammed into the ground excavating a hole 700 feet deep and more than 4000 feet across. You learn all this from the movie and the museum exhibits before venturing outside but actually seeing the crater with your own eyes will still take your breath away. The crater looks and feels extraterrestrial as you gaze down on it from high up on the rim. Although human eyes did not witness the impact (as people are not thought to have been in the Americas that far back) Native Americans were certainly aware of the crater long before the advent of European explorers. The first known written account was made in 1871 by one of General Custer's scouts (for years the crater was known simply as Franklin's Hole).

There are an estimated 200 plus impact craters known on earth. Some are huge, hundreds of times the size of Arizona's, but Meteor Crater remains one of the best preserved and most accessible. So if you're driving by on US-40 and you see the signs I encourage you to take an hour or two and go see something you just don't see everyday. Here's a quick video tour I shot during my visit...