What as it like at the time of impact?

Recreation of a scene in late Pleistocene by Mauricio Antón (Image Licensing)

The Pleistocene era, also known as Ice Age, was the epoch of the Barringer Meteor Crater impact, approximately 50,000 years ago. It was quite a different landscape than what is seen now: a high desert plain. In fact it struck land which was covered with juniper-pinyon forest and megafauna such as mammoths and giant sloths! This image depicts quite a few of the animals which would have been present at the time of this impact. Read about the environmental effects of this impact at the Lunar Planetary Institute article by David A. Kring and Jake Bailey here.