Arizona Meteor Crater

If you are the kind of nerd that I am (and I like to think that you are; Hello, Nerd Friend), you will remember the week in elementary school that you learned about the Barringer Meteorite Crater in Arizona. You know, the giant ball of iron that zoomed in from space, made a fantastic hole, and probably killed off the dinosaurs? Ok, that last part isn’t true, it wasn’t THE meteor (which was, by all accounts, one of many significantly larger ones), but the Arizona meteor was a pretty big one, and because the plains around it are still completely desolate, it’s easy to imagine mass extinction. A few weeks ago Mr. Blue Eyes and I decided to go on an adventure close-ish to home, and the crater was near the top of my list.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (3)The crater is massive, over a mile across, 2.5 miles in circumference, and 550 feet deep. You can see a bit of white in that photo up there, those are outbuildings from the mining operation that used to be at the base of this pit.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (7)This is a piece of the meteor that made the impact. Most of the 150 foot rock dissolved upon fiery impact, but from time to time the ranchers in the wide open spaces around this crater find pieces of this heavy nickle-iron space-debris on their land. The largest piece found so far is about the size of an infant car seat and weighs something like 1,400 pounds.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (4)Blue Eyes and I wandered around the museum, took the tour out to the edge of the crater, were curtailed on said tour due to a nasty-looking storm brewing to the north, but did check out several fixed telescopes to get a better look at the geology of the crater, some old leftover mining operations that were hauled down there by mule, and the debris from a small airplane that crashed in the crater, not taking into account the wind in there it was unable to get out and smashed into the rocky sides of the pit.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (2)The museum was small, but had a lot of interesting information on meteors, meteorites, and history of the area. Blue Eyes is a mining geek, and a dirt & rock geek, and I love space stuff…so we frankly had a blast at the museum. Man, science is awesome.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (1)As we were leaving the storm we’d been watching turned into a pretty intense summer thundercloud with speedy winds whipping it across the plateaus. Glad we weren’t on the rim of the crater for that, but am also kind of bummed we didn’t get to go exploring a little more.

Arizona Meteor Crater_feistyharriet_July 2016 (5)Uh, this is not at the crater, this was a wrong exit that I insisted was correct, only to be met with some weird tribal-alien ruins of what once was a money maker on historic Route 66.

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Joshua Tree National Park

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Joshua Tree National Park in the desert/deserted part of Southern California is a completely other-worldy place. I mean, I’ve seen Joshua Trees many times as I criss-cross the dry and seemingly barren spaces of the Wild West, but I’ve never wandered around dozens and dozens of them, and I’ve never seen them glow with that low afternoon golden light.

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My late afternoon hike in Joshua Tree consisted mostly of my trying to get plenty of photos that I liked, while trying NOT to get stuck by cholla cactus spines. I was moderately successful on both fronts.

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These trees really do feel like a cross between some kind of alien life-form and something Dr. Seuss/Tim Burton would dream up. And the hills are COVERED in them. They weren’t super close together, there’s definitely not enough natural water for that kind of density, but I felt like the Joshua Tree soldiers just went on for miles and miles, never thinning out, never clumping up, just well-ordered spike-balls on sticks, marching away into the distance.

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So weird, so alien, so gorgeous.

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My visit to Joshua Tree included spending a night solo camping; I have never been afraid of road tripping by myself, but it was a new experience to go camping by myself, and one that at times made me a wee bit uneasy. I mean, I was staying in a well established campground at a national park, it’s not like I was camped on the side of the road near a high security prison, or anything. But still, there were nerves.

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I’m glad I didn’t chicken out and go stay in one of the motels in town, honestly, they looked quite sketchy. Besides, the sunrise over the trees was just gorgeous. For the record, I stayed in Black Rock Campground on the north side/Yucca Valley side, mostly because they accepted reservations and I didn’t want to be solo camping AND short one camp spot, and then end up on the side of the road. Ahem.

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One of my life goals is to visit 50 National Parks, after last weekend I am sitting at a pretty reasonable 19, I’ve got a lot more adventuring to do! That being said, I would definitely visit JTNP again to do a little more exploring.

Until next time, Joshua Tree!

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You can view my whole photo album here.

Have you been to Joshua Tree!? What kind of hiking or exploring did you do?

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Petrified Forest National Park

Once upon a time, in the middle of a very long drive from Salt Lake to Phoenix, I took myself on a little detour to Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. It was a park I’d never visited, was literally right off my route (which was already a detour to include stops at Four Corners and Shiprock, NM), and I figured a quick stop to check it out would be a good way to stretch my legs. It was….well, it as nothing like I expected, and not in a very good way. I mean, the stripey desert was gorgeous, with layers of red and white and purple and green on the dunes and hills glowing in the late afternoon sun. It was too warm for me to really enjoy a little hike (when I’d left that morning it was in the low 30’s, the weather in Petrified Forest NP was in the 80’s with no shade and very few substantial clouds), and I had been subsisting off gas station snacks for a day and a half already.

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So, instead of hiking down among the hills, I wandered around the look out places, and then drove to the next, and the next, and the next. Petrified Forest NP isn’t large, and there is a 20-ish mile loop that takes you through the most popular parts of the park. After an hour of driving and wandering and driving and wandering I still hadn’t seen any actual trees petrified into rocks, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but, I don’t know, maybe a few rocky stumps here or there?

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Nope, just more striped hills. Pretty, stunning even, but for me this part was not As Advertised, and that usually leads to disappointment.

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Towards the end of my drive through the park I pulled over to view Newspaper Rock, which is best seen with binoculars (or the zoom function of your best camera lens), humans aren’t allowed anywhere near the engravings, probably with good reason; time and time again humans in the general public have shown they are the worst for taking care of ancient spaces. That being said, I do wish I would have been able to get a closer look at these drawings, don’t they look so cool!?

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As I headed out of the park the red striped hills gave way to gray and blue and green striped hills, they look a lot more like The Badlands in South Dakota than anything I’ve seen in Red Rock Country. And then, my camera battery died. I did see a few rocky stumps and sections of fallen trees before I exited the park, but most of my little adventure was striped and petrified desert. Again, that kind of geology is pretty cool, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

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The town of Holbrook, Arizona is just a few miles from Petrified Forest National Park (population: 5,000), they have petrified logs lined up like vehicles at a car lot, hundreds of them for sale, giant ones, medium-sized ones, smaller ones. So, if petrified logs is what you are hoping to see, you will probably have a better shot of seeing them in town than in the park–although it kills me a little to actually type those words out.

Have you been to the Petrified Forest? Have you ever been disappointed in a National Park? Do you pack extra camera batteries, prepared like a girl scout, to avoid lack-of-battery predicaments!?

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Tsé Bit'a'í, or, Shiprock, New Mexico

Shiprock Tsé Bitʼaʼí NM 1_feistyharriet_March 2016

I have made the drive from Salt Lake City to Phoenix and back more times than I can count. There are only a few ways you can go: the shortest distance, the shortest time, and the one with the least chance of bad weather in high mountain passes. On my drive back to Arizona a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to take a little different route because I really wanted to see the hardened and weathered insides of a volcano so ancient that it’s insides are now on the outside, the only remnants left of what was once an angry, molten-lava mountain.

Shiprock Tsé Bitʼaʼí NM 2_feistyharriet_March 2016

Called Tsé Bit’a’í by the Navajo, meaning “Rock with Wings” this formation is the giant bird that brought the Navajo safely to northwestern New Mexico. When white frontiersmen arrived they thought it looked like a clipper ship and renamed it (and everything else). Located on tribal lands and still held sacred by the Navajo you can walk around it, but you cannot climb it.

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Scientifically, this is the core of an ancient volcano with enormous fins of volcanic rock, up to 150 feet tall, radiating out in three directions. There are very few signs to lead you to the bumpy dirt road that will take you closer to the formation. Shiprock is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, the closest other landmark is Four Corners National Monument, which if you’ve ever visited is miles and miles from anything else. I did stop at Four Corners on my drive, it was a not-really-quick detour on my way to see this giant rock. Frankly, Tsé Bit’a’í is much more interesting without any tourist trap things to hijack your experience. Literally: no signs, no historical marker with the Navajo legend, nothing. There was one spray-painted sign half-propped up along main highway, but that was it.

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That big wall on the left is the most prominent fin stretching for several miles. I didn’t climb the wall itself (hello, respect), but I did walk up a little trail to the base to see what I could see. The drop off on the other side was considerably steeper than the slope on my side, I’m not afraid of heights, but it did make me gulp a bit. The scale of the wall is massive, I can only imagine what it would be like to stand at the base of Shiprock and try and see the top.

A note: I just found out there is a similar formation in north-eastern Arizona, the remains of an ancient volcano, complete with radiating walls of volcanic rock, about 1500 feet high. On my next trek through this part of the country I’ll probably have to stop and check it out too. I certainly have a thing for the leftovers of ancient volcanoes. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming is another example of an eroded volcanic plug, totally loved that as well.

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I am still completely haunted and mesmerized by this formation, I don’t entirely know why. As a white girl from Utah I have ZERO claim on it, not culturally, or geographically, or anything else. But I love it, all the same. I suppose, in some ways this rocky monolith reminds me of the rocky mountains that hold my secrets, the scariest and sweetest secrets that you whisper to the wind knowing she will take your words up to the highest peaks, and carefully hide them among the shadows and the deep places, safe from prying eyes and people digging around for answers. I honestly think part of my heart is formed from the peaks and caves and cirque’s of the highest, rocky mountains, part of me always feels safer with them soaring above me.

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Horseshoe Bend and Highway 89

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For the first part of March I was lucky enough to be back in Salt Lake for some work-stuff, but also to spend some much needed time with my mountains, the city that holds my heart, and dear friends and family. The road to my northern home is approximately 700 miles long, and it’s primarily desert. But, the desert is, in ways both figurative and literal, my other home. I was driving by myself, which meant I could stop as often as I wanted to for pictures and little hikes. Frankly, I don’t know why I don’t do that EVERY time I make this drive!

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There are several places in Utah and Arizona with these stripey hills and cliffs. Most are red, but the ones here are a greenish-gray with purple-y stripes and I have always loved them. They kind of look like enormous elephants taking a nap, and you know how much I like elephants. As you near Page on the Utah-Arizona border you wind your way to the top of the plateau that towers over Lake Powell and instead of looking up at the cliffs and formations you have the somewhat-stomach-dropping opportunity to (lay flat on your belly, inch towards the edge and) look down into the beginnings of the Grand Canyon at the famous Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River.

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I really wish that I had a lens to capture the enormity of this view, a major wide-angle or something so you can comprehend the vastness of the space, but also, comparatively how this tremendous bend doesn’t seem enormous when compared to the horizon and the knowledge that this is the northern end of the Grand Canyon plateau.

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I mean, yes, it’s huge. Those are scrubby trees down there on the shore, not sage brush. But to think about how small this one particular place is on a river almost 1,500 miles long. This water started as snow in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and winds it’s way through the deserts of Utah and Arizona, supplying power for Las Vegas and Southern California, before emptying into the Baja and on to the Pacific. And this is just one, tiny little bend of that river.

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You can see a tiny smidge of white on the river, that is the wake of a pretty massive speed boat, the kind that could easily hold a party of water skiers without feeling crowded.

Goodness, this earth is gorgeous. I realize I’m biased, but I just cannot imagine how anywhere else can give you the thrill of redrock country. The cliffs, the scale, the colors, and the knowledge that a river of melted snow created hundreds and hundreds of miles of stuff like this. It’s the kind of thought that makes you feel incredibly small and unimportant, yet also determined to protect these spaces.

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