You know those eerily concerning moments in alien/space invader movies where the heroes of the film discover the area of land where the aliens have begun terraforming Earth to look like their home world? If I didn’t know better (and I’m not sure I do), I would absolutely say that Petrified Forest National Park of Northeast Arizona is one such place. Nowhere else I have been on my journeys has stood out in such an other-worldly way. Nowhere else felt has felt so out of place with what I expected of a National Park, let alone a place in Arizona (a State known for weirdness). And yet nowhere else is such an easy and worthwhile stop if you find yourself traveling Interstate 40 across Arizona.
Even the very name Petrified Forest National Park conjures up a wide variety of questions in one’s head as to what you’ll see in such a place.
- I’ve seen pictures of petrified wood before, but what does a petrified forest look like?
- Petrified wood is just… wood that became rock and kinda looks like a log, right?
- Why is there an entire National Park dedicated to a bunch of rocks?
I had this expectation of a tiny National Park that you’d want to spend all of an hour in (which includes a stop at the Visitors Center) before you’re tired of looking at wood-shaped rocks. That expectation and those questions seem so silly now.
Petrified Forest National Park is located just South of the massive Navajo Nation in the eastern part of Arizona in what is known as the Painted Desert, straddling Interstate 40. While some National Parks take a lot of effort to reach (I’m talking about you Dry Tortugas), Petrified Forest certainly feels like one of the easier Parks to visit.
The Park has its own Interstate exit which brings you quickly to the Painted Desert Visitor’s Center on the Park’s Northern expanse. The Visitor’s Center is very much worth your visit as it features lots of informative displays, a movie theater, a nice cafe, and great facilities that you’ll want to use before venturing out. Despite spending a bit of time looking around, once I went through the gate towards what was labeled as “The Painted Desert” on the main (and only) road through the Park, I still didn’t know what to expect, and it certainly wasn’t what I discovered.
The Painted Desert
One fascinating thing I’ve learned over these past few years is that the term desert contains multitudes. Growing up in the humid, hilly, and green wilds of rural Missouri and the even humider, greener, and much less hilly subtropical-ness of urban Florida, the only real image I had of the desert was from cartoons. Endless sand dune seas, little (often imagined) oases, and an overhead overbearing blazing sun (that’s often wearing sunglasses for some reason).
Yet as I’ve been exploring the West, I’ve found out that the deserts of the American West hardly ever look like that. Wyoming’s (Wyomingite Basin), Idaho’s (Snake Plateau and Northern Basin), and Oregon’s (Columbian) deserts are often cold and feel like endless expanses of rock and scrub. The Mojave and Sonoran deserts of Southern Arizona and Southeastern California are rocky, but are often covered by various cacti. *Also yes, I know that there are people who know so much more than me about deserts who would be angered that I just grouped so many various regions together with such broad terms, but I’m doing my best*. And now, I’ve experienced the colorful weirdness that is the Painted Desert of Eastern Arizona.
As I drove past the gate, I totally expected to quickly see my first bit of petrified wood (I mean, that’s what this Park is named after, right?). Instead, what I was treated to was the vast overlooks of the Painted Desert at Tiponi and Tawa Points. I spotted what looked like the surface of the field at a Monster Truck Rally, just WAY more colorful. The beautiful blue skies above me and clean clear light from the Arizona sun lit these red mounds of multi-colored earth that rippled and roiled off to the horizon like some sort of sea, frozen in place. I was suddenly giddy and smiling stupid (this is one my loved descriptions of the type of smile you get when you get off the phone with your favorite person, knowing that you’ll soon be seeing them).
Often times, places are named in such lazy and undeserving ways. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming is very cool, but what does the devil have to do with it? The Painted Desert is not such a place. The looping hills, bumbles, and mounds of earth through this part of the country come across as some sort of western-themed Dr Suess world. Blacks, Greys, Oranges, Yellows, and Reds seem to take turns teaming up with each other to present different combinations. Multiple Points with small parking lots are present in this northern part of the Park and thus you’re given plenty of opportunities to see the stacks and colors from various angles as the sunlight plays across them.
Scrubland
Crossing under the Interstate and heading South through the Park, you’ll take a brief break from the Painted Desert and travel through scrubland, but have the chance to stop and see a couple of spots of interest highlighting native peoples – Puerco Pueblo and Newspaper Rock, both of which have 2,000 year old petroglyphs.
The Teepees and Blue Mesa
Shortly after Newspaper Rock, the landscape changes again as the Painted Desert returns and the road swerves quickly through Bentonite formations known as the Teepees.
These rounded formations in this part of the Park do very much have a very distinct shape and at times almost feel like they were dropped molten from the sky and allowed to cool into these conical shapes. The colors here seemed darker than in the Northern part of the Park,/ and became quite vivid at times. The reds from before are still present, but mixed more with dark grays and blacks. I loved the Teepees in how they framed the road, and thanks to cold temperatures, I could wander out into the middle of it for pictures as people were sparsely seen.
One of the only major side roads of the Park came up next as I turned off toward Blue Mesa. This loop of a road takes you to several additional lookout points over the Painted Desert, but also has an amazing hike spot down into and through the Blue Forest (look, I don’t love that they use Forest twice in this Park for two radically different things, but I don’t yet get to make those changes). Once you descend onto the trail from the parking lot above, you’ll find yourself among some of the more colorful mounds in the park, which feature blues and lavenders, in addition to the now familiar reds and whites. It is easy to feel so very small while hiking these trail, almost as though you are under water looking up from the ocean floor below. Excellent hike.
Agate Bridge
At this point, I was feeling a bit like Dr Ian Malcolm visiting Jurassic Park asking “Eventually, you do plan to have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour, right?” I had traveled through what had looked like the majority of the Park, and had yet to see any petrified wood (forest or not). My first real opportunity came at the very next stop along the road, a spot called Agate Bridge. Here, just off the parking lot was what appeared to be a fallen tree bridging across an old creek bed. You couldn’t get too close to it, and it looked like it was partially supported by some man-made aides, but it was real petrified wood. I gotta tell you, I was not impressed. Once a 20 something year old guy, who was attempting to show off for the two girls he was with, stated that he was going to walk across it despite multiple signs warning against it. I decided I was going to get back in the car.
Jasper Forest
I was getting towards the last couple of spots on the map when I turned into the drive towards Jasper Forest. Finally, I was going to see what a petrified forest looked like! Stepping out of the car I hiked out to what appeared to be a cliff edge with signage pointing out that in the valley below is the petrified Jasper Forest. D’oh. There were some mounted binoculars along the railing where would could look down into the valley at the hunks of petrified logs, and some great signage about the early settlers who found this place looking almost exactly like it does, but no petrified wood near me.
At this point I was actually wondering if I would get to see any close up, and I started to wander back to my car. It was only as I started to leave that I saw that there were a few large hunks of a petrified tree near the parking lot that were easily reachable! I scampered down the embankment and finally got my hands on petrified wood!
The petrified wood was not at all what I expected, though I’m still not sure what that originally was. The now stone was extremely smooth and cool to the touch (I’m sure it being the winter had a whole lot to do with that – but it was still an odd feeling). While most every other bits of rock in the desert are both dusty and gritty, this very much felt like I was touching large smooth hunks of glass. The colors of the petrified wood were also beyond what I thought they would be (I mean, when you think about wood, there aren’t a whole lot of colors that come to mind). There were vivid oranges and greens, reds and blues, purples and whites. All swirled together in combinations that I haven’t seen in nature before. As I got back into the car, I eagerly looked forward to the next and final stop on the map: Crystal Forest.
Crystal Forest
While one can be forgiven for not being excited about places called Agate Bridge and Jasper Forest, a name like Crystal Forest feels like one of those put up or shut up names on the map. I was not disappointed.
The sun was well into the depths of its golden hour as I parked and eagerly starting down the path into the “Forest” (yet again, this not at all anything like what you’d expect a forest to be, it is clear that this one actually was one in the distant past). Bathed in the golden rays of the setting sun, a long trail snakes in and throughout thousands of hunks of petrified trees, some of which still very much have a tree trunk shape. The vivid colors from before were somehow shimmering even more brilliantly in the light, and it feels like this place must have been named at this time of day.
I happily walked the entire loop of the trail through the forest, stopping often to study the crystalline tree trunks scattered everywhere. There is a strict rule (and I suspect law) preventing you from taking petrified wood from the Park, but nothing prevents you from touching and investigating them. I still can’t get over their glass-like nature, but no glass smith I’ve seen could create such wonders in their shop. My favorites were when I would find rich greens and purples in the stone.
One Final Gift From the Park
By now, the sun was slipping over the lip of the world, and the Western sky with alive with fiery clouds celebrating the end of the day. Content with all that I had encountered that day, I drove towards the Southwestern gate, my eyes enjoying the show before me, when I felt her.
Pulling over to get a shot of the sky, I could no longer ignore the feeling of something behind me and turned back towards the East, only to see the largest most dominate full moon of my life. Rising impossibly large over the horizon, this moonrise opposite a still smoldering Arizonan sunset legit caused me to ignore all weariness from the day and get back into the car to venture back East towards her. Yes, I do realize that driving towards the moon will not legit get me closer to it, but I felt as though I needed to. Finally, the futility of it caught up with my mind and I simply pulled back over to enjoy the full moon in all its glory. Photos from an iPhone cannot yet do such a sight any sort of justice, so after snagging a few, I just sat there and drank it all in. What a wonderful way to end such a delightful day.
A Few Quick Notes
- As my story illustrates, there are two entrances to the Park: the Painted Desert entrance off of Interstate 40 in the North, and the Crystal Forest entrance in the South. I absolutely loved the route I took. While coming in the from the South would have gotten me immediately to petrified wood, coming in the from the North built this fun bit of expectation over the course of the visit.
- I spent approximately 4 hours in Park, and that felt like a good amount of time for such a place. You could certainly see all that I did in 3 hours or less, but that wouldn’t include any hikes or other bits of exploration (and would be quite boring).
- Other than the rather short hikes, looking at sights and petrified wood, and reading signage and histories, there isn’t a ton to “do” at the Park. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, but I could see how being there with young children might not be the best of time if they are expecting activities and animals.
