Meteor Crater

How, you might wonder, can someone own a crater? But, in fact, Meteor Crater - 600-foot-deep, 0.75-mile-wide - is a privately owned crater and a major tourist attraction with exhibits about meteorites, crater geology and the Apollo astronauts who used its lunar-like surface to train for their moon missions. . It is also one of Arizona's three geo-sites (101 American Geo-Sites You've Gotta See, Albert Dickas). Mr. Spock was particularly excited because the meteor, dubbed the Canyon Diablo Meteor, that created the crater came from outer space! Before it broke apart during impact, the meteor was about 130 feet in diameter, weighed about 300,000 tons and was traveling at more than 27,000 miles per hour.

Most of the Canyon Diablo Meteor probably disintegrated before impact, but this is the largest remanent that has been found from the impact.

You're not allowed to go down into the crater, but we went on a guided walking tour along the crater edge.

Off to the northwest, Mt. Humphrys, and the San Francisco Mountains are visible.

This is Kathy, our tour guide. She is at the geology station showing us the different kinds of rocks in the crater strata. We were fortunate to have her as our guide as she was knowledgable and entertaining.

At the end of the paved trail that we took was the ruins of the house of the man who filed the mining claim that gave him ownership of the crater. His family subsequently developed the tourist attraction.

Lovely stonework of the remaining walls of the house.

Mr. Spock, and Frederick, did have a little difficulty with the wind that was gusting up to 40-miles-per-hour.

Hey, Scott! Look at this stonework! This picture is for you!!

Nearby is a root cellar which...

provided a little protection from the wind.

Big blocks of Coconino sandstone that was blasted from the crater.

After the guided tour, the three of us went out on an observation platform for another view of the crater.

Mr. Spock really enjoyed his visit.

As we were leaving through the Gift Shop, we ran into Kathy who agreed to have her picture taken with Mr. Spock. We enjoyed spending time with Kathy at Meteor Crater.

Back at Homolovi State Park we had time for a visit to the Visitor Center and a couple of short treks into this grasslands park.

Homolovi State Park is committed to protect the artifacts and structures within this sacred Hopi ancestral homeland.  Behind the Visitor Center was a short hike to Sunset Cemetery, a reminder of the attempt by Mormons to settle this land - it failed. 

Not too far in the distance is the Little Colorado River.

Homolovi means "little hills". There were four sites where the Hopi lived and grew crops.

Today's combined hikes:

Length - 4+ miles

Duration - 2 hours

Elevation gain - 550 feet (55 floors on the Fitbit)