Petrified Forest National Park
2 / 2
Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert made time feel enormous. We stopped at almost every overlook and trail and each offered its own unique story. From ancient petroglyphs and pueblo remains to the vast, colorful badlands, this landscape was surreal. 220 million years ago, these trees stood in a lush landscape near the equator as part of Pangea. It's astounding to consider the passage of time and the natural processes that transformed these trees into stone.
Agate House
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A highlight was the Blue Mesa Trail, a short but steep loop through hills streaked in purples, grays, and pale blues. The colors come from layers of bentonite clay, formed from volcanic ash over millions of years.
Agate House, a pueblo built almost entirely from petrified wood, glows with deep reds, purples, and golds. The reconstructed structure shows how the ancestral Puebloan people used what the landscape provided.
At Newspaper Rock, petroglyphs cover the dark stone below the overlook. Two of them felt like little nods to our week in northern Arizona. One looked like a big bird with a critter in its beak, just like the crested seriema we saw at Bearizona with his miniature toy gator. Another looked suspiciously like an astronaut, which immediately brought to mind the astronaut figure at the bottom of Meteor Crater. A few even looked like emojis, proof that smiley faces have apparently always been a thing.
Just down the road, Puerco Pueblo preserves the remains of a 100-room ancestral village, offering a glimpse into how people once lived in this stark landscape.
Petrified Forest is the only national park with a section of historic Route 66 running right through it. You can still see the remains of an old Studebaker car and the site of an old tourist lodge from the Route 66 heyday. This place surprised me with more than just ancient trees.
We ended our visit near the Painted Desert Inn, where I took a short walk along the Painted Desert Inn Rim Trail for one last look over the sweeping badlands before leaving the park.
After a full day of exploring, we headed back toward Flagstaff, hoping to finally score a boondocking spot for the night. We tried near Walnut Canyon, but struck out. The main forest road was posted with no camping signs, and side roads were either fenced off or blocked with dirt berms. Clearly a former boondocking area, but not anymore. As dusk closed in, we bailed to a Cracker Barrel parking lot. Between the freight trains and highway traffic, it wasn’t exactly our best night.
Agate House, a pueblo built almost entirely from petrified wood, glows with deep reds, purples, and golds. The reconstructed structure shows how the ancestral Puebloan people used what the landscape provided.
At Newspaper Rock, petroglyphs cover the dark stone below the overlook. Two of them felt like little nods to our week in northern Arizona. One looked like a big bird with a critter in its beak, just like the crested seriema we saw at Bearizona with his miniature toy gator. Another looked suspiciously like an astronaut, which immediately brought to mind the astronaut figure at the bottom of Meteor Crater. A few even looked like emojis, proof that smiley faces have apparently always been a thing.
Just down the road, Puerco Pueblo preserves the remains of a 100-room ancestral village, offering a glimpse into how people once lived in this stark landscape.
Petrified Forest is the only national park with a section of historic Route 66 running right through it. You can still see the remains of an old Studebaker car and the site of an old tourist lodge from the Route 66 heyday. This place surprised me with more than just ancient trees.
We ended our visit near the Painted Desert Inn, where I took a short walk along the Painted Desert Inn Rim Trail for one last look over the sweeping badlands before leaving the park.
After a full day of exploring, we headed back toward Flagstaff, hoping to finally score a boondocking spot for the night. We tried near Walnut Canyon, but struck out. The main forest road was posted with no camping signs, and side roads were either fenced off or blocked with dirt berms. Clearly a former boondocking area, but not anymore. As dusk closed in, we bailed to a Cracker Barrel parking lot. Between the freight trains and highway traffic, it wasn’t exactly our best night.