The Meteor Crater and Hualapai

We’re doing some trips out while the motorhome is in the repair shop, and the first of these is right on the doorstep: the world’s most perfectly preserved meteorite crater.

50,000 years ago a chunk of metal 150 feet across and travelling at 26,000 miles per hour hit the Arizona desert. This is the kind of terrain it impacted, almost flat and barren.

A piece of the metal meteorite survives. Not much to look at, but the whole lump created an explosive force equal to a 20 million tonnes of TNT.

It made a crater nearly a mile in diameter and 700 feet deep, created in less than 10 seconds.

I took lots of photos of the crater, but essentially they all look the same, a huge hole from slightly different angles. Highly impressive, but one picture tells it all.

Next destination, Hualapai. This small mountain range takes its name from a Native American tribe. The tribe fought a war with the settlers in the 1860’s but surrendered in 1870 under their chief Levi Levi. This is his photo much later as an old man, not looking at all imposing in western dress – he might even be wearing Levis.

The mountain, however, is not part of the Indian reservation and is managed as a recreation area. It has a maximum elevation of 8,500 feet, so its green and tree-lined slopes make a change from the arid desert at the base.

We were disappointed not to see more wildlife, but were told by one of the rangers that sometimes elk gathered at a nearby privately owned lake. Not much chance there, then, but we had some pretty walks through the woods.

We finished with an ice-cream from the store at a rather run-down small residential area nearby. Ironically, at the side of the store we saw a life-size model of an elk.

Just a minute: it’s walking!

Now we spot several elk are moving through the trees. It’s a small herd.

These are the second larges deer species after the moose, some standing about 6 feet at the shoulder. Not showing fear of humans (i.e.us), they seem quite relaxed and gentle, reminding us of camels. One even sat down.

So the day redeemed itself, but it was a lovely area anyway.