Petrified Forest and Painted Desert

On Tuesday, we drove to the Petrified Forest, about 120 miles east of Flagstaff. On the way, we drove through Holbrook, a small town with lots of Route 66 charm. We stopped in at the visitor center and met a chatty visitor guide with a wry sense of humor who pointed us toward south entrance of the Petrified Forest.

Standing with Old Faithful

We drove on, as instructed, and found the Rainbow Forest Museum where we watched a short orientation film about the origin of petrified wood as well as the insistent plea not to take any of it from the park. The park service estimates that over 1 ton of petrified wood walks out of the park every month!

Petrified Wood with
the Badlands in background

We ventured out into the Giant Logs trail just behind the visitor center and saw lots of big rocks who began life as tall trees. These trees grew along the banks of what used to be a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. At some point these trees fell and were washed into the floodplain where they swelled with water and sank. At the bottom of the streams, their decay was slowed by the lack of oxygen under a layer of silt, mud and volcanic ash.

Eventually, the silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the cellulose with silica deposits which crystallized into quartz. Subsequently, the floodplain became high, dry grasslands and erosion began to expose the petrified logs buried in the ground. In 1906, selected stands of the petrified trees were set aside as the Petrified Forest National Monument. In 1932, 53,200 more acres of the Painted Desert were added to the monument.

Ken and Gus at the Agate House

The logs are stunning to see, with all their varied rings of different colors and bark turned to stone. We wandered in and around the logs until we found 'Old Faithful', a log with a diameter of 10 feet at its base. From there, we walked over to the Long Logs Trail where the park's greatest concentration of petrified wood is found, perhaps because it is the site of an ancient logjam. The longest log here is over 120 feet long! The Agate House, originally built by seasonal farmers or traders as a temporary home some 700 years ago, is also on the Long Logs Trail. 

Eastern Collared Lizard

We also saw a bright green lizard posing on a piece of log, waiting for us to come and take his picture. As it turns out, he's an Eastern Collared Lizard. While walking along the trail, we saw the badlands off in the distance, not to be confused with the South Dakota Badlands. These badlands are hills with layers of sandstone, siltstone and iron oxide (hematite). The trail took us close to the badlands where we could see the soft sandy material streaking down the sides of the hills from erosion. We really enjoyed hiking around the park and seeing all the stone logs...how fascinating!

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert is part of the Petrified Forest National Park. The desert was named by a Spanish explorer El Desierto Pintado for the varied colors of its geologic layers. We continued on the park road north to the Painted Desert and found several scenic viewpoints to take pictures. As we left the park, a ranger check station asks each driver if anything has been taken or moved while in the park. They take the thievery of the wood bits VERY seriously so everyone can enjoy it for years to come. There are even real arrest reports posted on the park bulletin board, along with letters (and returned wood bits) from apologetic visitors whose lives were 'cursed' after taking a piece of wood years earlier.

We drove back to Flagstaff and had dinner and some brews at the Lumberyard Brewing Company next to the railroad tracks that bisect the town. The porter was excellent, and the meals big and tasty, especially the mac 'n cheese side dish. Yum!  We rolled ourselves back to the RV and off to bed after so much walking.

What a fun day in the sun!