May 2019

Located in the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest National Park contains the world’s largest concentration of petrified wood. These giant fossilized logs, many fractured into cordwood-sized segments, were formed when fallen trees were covered under layers of mud, sand and gravel, cutting off exposure to oxygen, so the trees didn’t rot. Silica from volcanic ash in the water was absorbed by the wood, causing a chemical reaction. Over time you end up with a silica replica of the tree. Eventually the logs dried out and become solid quartz. The movement and erosion of the land has caused the logs to break into pieces. Most of the petrified wood is located in the south end of the park.

We entered the north end of the park at the Painted Desert Visitor Center. Our first stop was the Painted Desert Inn which is now a historic landmark and museum. It’s a beautiful building first opened for business in the 1920’s when guests were brought in from nearby Highway 66.

Back on the road, after a couple of beautiful vista stops, we came to the former site of the famous Highway 66 that ran through the park, marked by a 1932 Studebaker.

 

Next we stopped for a short hike to Puerco Pueblo where we saw some petroglyphs and ancestral pueblo homes  occupied in 1250-1380 A.D… and a cute lizard.

We then drove to Newspaper Rock which displays over 650 petroglyphs, some over 2,000 years old.

 

We continued down the road, stopping to take pictures along the way of the interesting landscape.

One of my favorite spots in the park was our next stop, the Blue Mesa, also called the Blue Badlands, due to the grayish-blue tint of the rocks. There was a very cool one mile loop trail at the bottom of the canyon where you could get up close and personal with the landscape. It was a bit of a steep climb back up out of the canyon but well worth it.

After that we stopped to see Agate Bridge, a 110′ long petrified log bridge and some beautiful views.

Crystal Forest was another one mile loop trail through a badlands landscape with many intact petrified logs. There were also lots of beautiful cactus in bloom.

At the south end of the park, near the Rainbow Forest Visitor Center, is a two mile trail to a seven-room pueblo constructed of petrified wood. I took the walk out there and only passed one other couple and they were on their way out, so I had the place to myself. This is were I saw some of the most beautiful petrified wood and you can see where they got the name “Rainbow” Forest.  I also saw lots of beautiful wildflowers and cactus in bloom and I couldn’t stop taking pictures! Oh, and another cute lizard too.

After my hike we excited out of the south end of the park and made our way back to Holbrook. This is a unique and beautiful park that you should definitely plan to see!