Today we drove from the Grand Canyon to Sedona, Arizona which is the next place we will be staying at for a few nights. On the way we stopped at two places we were keen to check out. The first was Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, a pretty large National Park-type area around an extinct volcano, which apparently last erupted around 1085.

There was a really interesting and different landscape here, with large black lava fields of very jagged rock, black sand and gravel paths, and pine tree forest areas.

We did a couple of shorter hikes here as it was a travel day and we had a long trip to cover, but climbed up one of the old volcano craters which offered great views over the area. This was a really different hiking day from anything we’d seen so far on this trip, so we were pleased we made the stop.

Meteor Crater

Our second stop was at the equally interesting and unusual ‘Meteor Crater’ – the World’s most intact meteor impact crater which was formed ~50,000 years ago and has a circumference of 2.5 miles.

They had a visitor centre here with a couple of short films about the crater, its geology, history etc and then we had a 40 minute guided talk which takes you out along the rim a little way which was very interesting.

It was definitely a unique and unusual place to stop and we really liked it.

Si