Visiting the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

The Valley of Fire was wonderful. We liked it so much we even thought about taking a day to camp there. Then we realized just how close to Sedona, Arizona we were getting and decided to get back on the highway! Sedona. It had been on our bucket list for so, so long. We had done a lot of research online. We had watched tons of YouTube videos and read an awful lot of journals about Sedona. It was a dream to us for so long, until the day it all became reality. We had one more stop on our way however, and I had this feeling it was going to be a good one! The Petrified Forest National Park. The name itself kind of just reaches right on out there and grabs a hold of you doesn’t it? I pictured all these trees and then…

Well, there weren’t trees, not really, desert with pieces of petrified wood. Nearly a dozen types of petrified wood have been formally described in the park. This park was part of a large river system with tons of trees along the waterways. As the trees died naturally over many years, some floated downstream to form log jams. The original national monument was created where the highest concentration of these pieces of wood were located. Petrified Forest National Park protects less than 20% of the petrified wood in northeastern Arizona. Petrified wood is mostly silica and quartz. The logs are very hard, but brittle. After petrification, while the logs were still encased in matrix rock, the logs cracked under stress. As the logs eroded out, from gravity and ice wedging, the cracks widened and segments separated. Silica naturally breaks on a clean angle. Cool, huh? We thought so. Wasn’t quite like I imagined it.

It took a while to drive out to the park and we only saw open deserts, then the deserts started to become rolling hills. Still, we didn’t see anything really until we entered into the park’s entrance. Still no forest of trees. Hmm…

Our first stop was the visitor’s center that had a small museum inside. We went inside to get our tourist goodies, put them back in the van and then walked though the center to the backdoors. There is a trail that leads into the mounds. Off in the distance you can see rolling hills and hills of all different shapes and sizes that appeared to have been painted. So amazing! Amy and I were still pretty tired from our journeys so far. We had been on the road for a while now. I won’t lie, driving through TEXAS had taken its toll on us. Such a cool state but man its so big!

I remember on the drive to this park I got this weird icky feeling. It was a feeling I had never really experienced before. It was the feeling of being, “Homesick.” This is the only word that comes to mind when I am asked to describe it. It came out of nowhere. We were jamming to our favorite playlists on iTunes when it came on. I felt alone. Even though I was traveling to all these cool places, the places we had already visited so far (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, and Big Ben National Park. We had gone on a swamp boat ride in a TRUE swamp and toured downtown New Orleans. We had taken a river boat ride through the most amazing downtown area filled with skyscrapers and wonderful sights), the places we were going to see, I still had this feeling. Man, it was strong. Has anyone else experienced this?

I tried to shake it, it lasted for a few minutes. It happened again like two more times along the journey and then it finally did subside. It’s an awful feeling to have let me tell you. We had just spoken to our son, Eathan, our grandson, Charlie, Amy’s Mom, my Mom, and things were carrying on back at home. Life was going on back home and we weren’t part of it. Our dogs weren’t eating and drinking properly, they were sad that we were gone. We had to face time them to get them to eat at first. Crazy huh? Then we got out and took the trail behind the visitor center.

The trees found in this area are mostly coniferous trees, tree ferns, and some gingkoes. Sorry, i’m not a tree expert so if you have more questions about the trees, ask a ranger, lol. I just know after touching some, they felt solid as a rock. They told us that the trees in the Black Forest were deposited about 211 million years ago and in some other forests nearby, even older than that.

This area is considered to be one of the largest concentrations of petrified wood in the world, with other large ones found in North Dakota, Argentina, and Egypt.

All the leaves, branches, bark either died or were knocked off the tree trunk during transportation by the waterways. This being our fourth National Park that we visited on this trip we were starting to feel SMARTER, lol learning all this wonderful knowledge of the world. Not sure what conversations back home we would weave this knowledge into though. Who knows. It sparked our interest, maybe someone else’s as well?

We took the short hike and climbed up and down mound after mound. We got a great up close look at the petrified trees. The trail made a circle and an hour or so later we found ourselves back at the visitor center.

We learned that it only takes about one hour to drive through the entire park. You can stop at certain points along the way and get out if you want to. We drove through the colorful mounds and through the open desert park.

We drove through the park towards the painted desert located on the other side. There are two entrances to the park you can come through. We were told that the wild flowers bloom in March to October but the best time to visit the park is after the snow and monsoon weather during the months of May, June, and July.

We made some stops along our way to take photographs along the roadside. They do have other hiking opportunities in the park. We didn’t have enough time and we wanted to spend some of our time in the painted desert portion.

They don’t have any camping within the park. You can obtain a backpacking permit at the ranger stations however. This would of been a great park to bring our electric bicycles to. You can ride the entire park, however, you cannot ride along the trails we were told.

Before we reached the painted desert we crossed over the Route 66 alignment. We stopped and got out to take pictures. This is the only national park that Route 66 actually crosses through the park. Along the roadside we found an old rusted out car, a vehicle front made of stone with a metal grill on its front. And Route 66 was written across the pavement portion. Great photo opportunity. Since Amy had been confusing Phillips 66 gas station signs during the entire trip mistaking them for Route 66 signs she was rather pleased with this stop. Ha.

We continued on. We got out and walked the trails by the painted desert. It stretched on for miles and miles as far as the eye could see. The dark rich soil allowed us to take some really fantastic, beautiful photographs. The hike was short and fun. The wind in this park was crazy. We found it hard filming with audio no matter what I tried out. If you haven’t watched the video on our YouTube channel make sure you stop by there after reading this Journal and watch it, I think you will like it. I think you will LIKE button it? I think you will SUBSCRIBE to our channel as well, LOL.

All in all, this magnificent park, although not an actual forest of tall standing trees like we thought it would be (no we never looked up any information on this park, Amy found out it was on our way and was able to add it on to our itinerary for Making Our Way Out West) but its forest was even neater than expected. The rolling hills, the colors of these mountains and deserts was to die for! Add it on to your trip if your coming out this way for sure! You won’t be disappointed. I wish we had more time to explore this park, but Sedona is still calling our name. Next stop, SEDONA, Arizona. See you there!