Earthwalk Day 935 (14 August 2024), 9357 km: Willamette meteorite site

Yesterday I took a bike ride. It was, by just a few hundred meters, the longest I’ve done in recent years, about 41.1 km. And it took virtual me across a state line. I left Washington, where I’d spent 60 days, and made my second entry into Oregon, crossing the Columbia River on the aptly named Oregon-Washington bridge from Victoria, WA to Portland, OR.

Today I walked about 7 km to arrive at the end of Leg 30.

You wouldn’t know it to look at it. 45°22′N 122°35′W seems to be just a typical bit of west coast suburban residential area. But it’s where the Willamette meteorite was discovered.

The Willamette fell to earth long ago, and not here. It probably came to rest somewhere in what is now Montana or western Canada. Then, about 13,000 years ago, the glacier it rested on broke up and the pieces rafted down the Columbia River, ending up depositing the meteorite somewhere around Apperson Boulevard — or where Apperson Boulevard would eventually be built, anyway.

At about 15,500 kg weight and 3 by 2 by 1.3 m size, the Willamette is the largest meteorite ever found in the United States and the sixth largest in the world. It’s mostly iron and nickel. Called Tomanowos by the Clackamas Chinook Native Americans, it is held sacred by the Native Americans of the area.

Which didn’t prevent white men from grabbing it, selling it, and taking it far away, of course. It ended up in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where you can see it to this day. (Actual me was in New York a couple weeks ago, but I didn’t have time to check it out.)

I’ve moved on another couple of km south, that’s where I am now.

July was a decent enough month, when you consider how much it rained and that I was out of town for a week. Average daily steps about matched 2022 and exceeded 2023 handily. Average daily distance split the difference between 2022 and 2023.

A map showing my progress is here, a spreadsheet with progress detail is here, and a Google Earth KMZ file is in this Google Drive folder. Present coordinates: 45.360°N, 122.601°W.