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Lots of lava at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument

Serene Ponderosa Pine Forest entering the monument
The Native people living northeast of Flagstaff must have wondered what made the ground shake under their pithouses and farming fields nearly 900 years ago during the birth of a volcano we now call Sunset Crater.

San Francisco Peaks from Lava Flow Trail
These early farmers had lived under the shadow of the volcanic San Francisco Peaks for 400 years.

Sunset Crater
Several generations later families returned to grow crops in the ash enriched soil.

Cinder Hills and Sunset Crater Volcano
While they were gone what began as molten rock spraying high into the air from a crack in the ground, solidified, and fell back to the Earth as large bombs or smaller cinders. As eruptions continued the debris accumulated around the vent and over time built the cone shaped mound seen today.

Gated lava tube
In addition to these eruptions were two large lava flows, the Kana-a and the Bonito. Partially cooled lava pushed through cracks like toothpaste from a tube, cooled and cracked into unusual shapes. Rivers of lava flowed below and eventually drained downhill to leave behind tube-like caves.

Spatter cone
As new gas vents opened, miniature volcanoes called spatter cones occurred.

Unknown flower growing out cinders
I walked the one-mile Lava Flow Trail at the volcano’s base. Sunset Crater was closed to climbing in 1973 to protect its fragile and crumbly slopes.

Ponderosa Pine
Life returns slowly to this rocky land. Ponderosa Pines spread roots far in search of water and to maintain stability against harsh winds in loose unstable soil.

About 400 year old Ponderosa Pine
I learned that Ponderosa Pines (one of my favorite trees) can grow either straight or dextrally, spiraling to the right. Although the spiral growth reduces the overall strength of a tree it increases flexibility and provides a more even distribution of water to branches and needles.

Painted Desert in the distance
From Sunset Crater, Forest Road 545 continues through the Coconino National Forest to my next stop at Wupatki National Monument.
Arizona, National Parks and Monuments, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument , 13 Comments

A little exercise at Walnut Canyon National Monument Arizona

San Francisco Peaks – west on I40 to Flagstaff Arizona
The wind continued to gust as I left Meteor Crater for Walnut Canyon National Monument.

The meandering Walnut Canyon
Where less than 25 miles away, I entered an entirely new environment. Actually, several environments. The opposite facing walls of the steep and narrow canyon slip from Ponderosa Pine to Juniper and back with every turn of the creek.

Juniper on left & ruins across canyon
No wonder the Sinagua (Spanish for without water) people settled here almost 900 years ago. They built dwellings for shelter in the natural recesses formed by millions of years of erosion as water flowed over the canyon’s rim carving away at the limestone walls.

Ponderosa along the Island Trail
Not only did the Sinagua take advantage of the abundance of plants and animals here they also farmed corn, beans and squash on top of the canyon.

Vandalized ruins
These ancient homes were occupied for little more than 100 years then remained disturbed only by the elements until the 1880s when souvenir hunters began to destroy accessible dwellings.

Partially preserved ruins
In 1915 Walnut Canyon was declared a national monument to preserve what had survived the centuries. This offered archaeologists opportunities to piece together the Sinagua’s story.

Over 400 ruins line the canyon walls and are scattered on the canyon rims. I could feel the spirit of people living a good life here, children laughing, women chattering while grinding corn, men telling stories as they repaired hunting tools.

Indian Paintbrush along trail
Trade items found in the ruins include turquoise from Santa Fe, New Mexico, seashell ornaments from the Gulf of Mexico and macaw feathers from Mexico.

Not only are there sheer drops along the trail but requires climbing 240 steps down and up 185 feet. The many original trails of the Sinagua running up and down the canyon walls are now overgrown and silent.

Looking up to the Visitor Center
Yet at one time the Sinagua people ranged from the eastern slopes of the San Francisco Peaks northeast to the Little Colorado River and south to the Verde River valley.

Island Trail
While I visited, part of the Island Trail loop was closed for repairs from a major rock fall. Yet the one mile walk passed many ruins. An estimated 400 people may have lived in this canyon community. It is believed they were eventually assimilated into the Hopi culture.
By the time I got to Flagstaff yesterday afternoon the wind was blowing sideways 50+ miles per hour. I was tired and camped at Greer’s RV Park. They offered no bathrooms, showers or WIFI but the “guy” parked me where I might get a signal from the coffee shop on the other side of the fence. No such luck. Sure was glad to be parked between two huge RVs which reduced some of the buffeting. It rained last night. And this morning I woke up to this.

Had planned to visit Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monument today. Instead I went shopping and found a KOA that offers WIFI to hunker down in for the day. I’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Arizona, National Parks and Monuments, Walnut Canyon National Monument , 10 Comments

Blown away at Meteor Crater Arizona

San Francisco Peaks west of Meteor Crater
Imagine watching 20 football games at once from the rim of a meteor crater.  Yea, this humongous hole could host that.
50,000 years ago a vast unbroken plain stretched for miles east of Flagstaff. An iron-nickel meteorite weighing several hundred thousand tons and about 150 feet across hurtling at about 26,000 miles per hour slammed into this Arizona plain with an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT. The meteorite disintegrated during impact through vaporization, melting and fragmentation leaving behind a crater 700 feet deep and over 4,000 feet across.

Meteor Crater
In the 1890s the chief geologist of the US Geological Survey concluded the crater was of volcanic origin. This idea held for two decades.

Cross section of Meteor Crater
From 1902 to 1929, Daniel Barringer, a mining engineer who believed that a meteor impact created the crater attempted to find a giant meteorite to mine the iron from. A decade later, and after Daniel’s death, the Barringer family partnered with the surrounding Bar T Bar Ranch and built facilities to provide views of the crater to the public.

Ruins of original visitor center

Raven’s nest in old observatory tower
Finally in 1960, Dr. Eugene Shoemaker an astrogeologist, proved that the crater was created by a giant meteor impact. Later Shoemaker and others discovered two new minerals at the crater, coesite and stishovite. Both of these are created under extremely high pressure and had not before been identified in nature. They have now been discovered at other geological features called astroblems.

Current visitor center
Apollo astronauts trained here prior to landing on the moon because of the similar terrain. They learned that ejected material found on the rim often originated below the crater’s surface. In 1968 Meteor Crater was designated a Natural Landmark.

Visitor center courtyard and crater rim trail
Craters are clearly seen on our moon and other planets. Most impact sites on Earth have been leveled by erosion. Meteor Crater is not the largest impact site but is has sustained very little erosion.

The wind was gusting up to 45 miles per hour and the guided mile walk was cancelled. Thank goodness for hand rails on the observation areas or I might have been blown into the crater. You are not allowed to hike into the crater, or gather rocks.
From the brochure: “The vast floor of the Crater is large enough to accommodate 20 football games being played simultaneously as over two million fans watch from the sloping walls of the impact site!”All the technical information comes from the Meteor Crater brochure, I’m no astrogeologist, yet.Next stop Walnut Canyon National Monument.

Arizona , , 8 Comments

Lijit

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