Fulfilling a Life Long Dream at Petrified Forest National Park

A Forest Turned to Stone

Most of the places I've visited since I started seriously traveling were not places I dreamt about visiting as a child.  Many of the places I've visited I had never even heard of until I planned a trip there, like the Faroe Islands or Lassen National Park.  Petrified Forest National Park is the exception. I wanted to visit this park since I was a child obsessed with natural history.  Who doesn't want to see a forest where all the wood has turned to stone?  It sounds like something out of a fairy tale.  I was able to loop this park in on my American South West road trip in November 2014.  

Excited to finally have made it to Petrified Forest National Park.

Petrified Forest National Park is located in the eastern Arizona, a couple hour drive from Flagstaff, or at least it should be.  We stopped in at one of the many gem and mineral shops surrounding the park.  As a geologist, I was like a kid in a candy store, running around the store loading my basket with fossils and minerals galore.  Eventually I realized that I could not fit all of the items in my basket in my car already loaded to the brim.  So I wound up putting back most of what I grabbed.  I settled for a piece of petrified wood, a meteorite, and a trilobite fossil (trilobites were marine organisms that thrived in the Cretaceous and resemble giant cockroaches).  It's a good thing I did not buy more, as the only remaining space in the car was under the front seats, which is where my treasures resided until I reached home.

Posing next to one of the largest intact petrified tree trunks.

The employee at the gem store wrapped our petrified wood in a lot of newspaper, which was then wrapped in a layer of tape.  I did not understand why a hunk of stone as hard as petrified wood needed to be padded so much, but I learned when we got to the park entrance.  The employee who checked our national parks annual pass and handed us a map asked if we had bought any petrified wood outside the park (petrified wood is abundant in this area of Arizona even outside the park).  We told the ranger yes, to which the range replied we should keep it wrapped and our receipt handy.  That way we could show we bought it outside the park, not taken it from the park as an illegal souvenir.

There's enough petrified wood to use it as a lean-to when taking a break.

Petrified Forest National Park is a drive through park, meaning it is easy to drive through the park in a couple of hours, take in all the sights at the majors stops, and continue on another highway to an overnight destination.  While shards of petrified wood litter the park only a few areas of large preserved trunks and logs exist in the park.  These areas are highlighted on the park map, and coincide with the visitor centers and gift shops.

The land in the park is literally littered with chunks of petrified wood.  All the dark spots in the distances are logs, branches, and trunks of petrified wood.

Wether large or small, pieces of petrified wood are beautiful.  In the process that turns wood to stone, all the colors of a rainbow are integrated into the matrix of the material.  Usually the exterior of a trunk of petrified wood resembled the living organism it once was, but the interior that was once a collection of rings, one set inside another, a mish mash of plastered colors resides instead.  

Some beautiful and colorful petrified wood.

However, petrified wood chunks are not the only geologic wonders in the park.  Much older colorful geologic formations can be observed in the structures known as tepees mid way though the park.  These cone-shaped formations are composed of layers of green, purple, blue, and gray mudstones and sand stones.  Mudstones and sandstones are stones formed when mud or sand is left undisturbed for a very long time or for a shorter time under intense pressure.  Water seeps out of the mud or sand and the grains stick together forming a stone.  These rocks are typical of areas once underwater, usually under the sea.  The layers of colorful mudstone in the tepees were laid down when Arizona was part of the sea floor.  The forest which became the petrified forest grew at much later date when Arizona rose above the salty waters.

Standing in front of the tepees formations made of purple, blue, and green mudstones.

In addition to the young geology of the petrified wood and the old geology of the tepees, Petrified Forest National Park also has some areas which feature elements of old human history.  Newspaper rock which can be viewed though telescopes on an overlook at the end of a short drive, features depictions of animals and hunters crudely etched into the side of a very large boulder.  The collection of petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock is pretty extensive, especially considering its the only collection of petroglyphs in the park.  Unfortunately the glyphs can only be viewed from afar (an effort to preserve them I am sure) but it made taking a clear photograph difficult without a telephoto lens.  They are best viewed in person anyways.

Newspaper Rock, covered in petroglyphs by ancient people.

Yet again, in addition to the old geology of the tepees, the young geology of the petrified wood, and the old human history of the petroglyphs, recent human history is also showcased in the park.  Route 66 actually runs right through the park, kind of.  The main drive of the park features an overpass which goes over Route 66 without actually intersecting it.  I don't think Route 66 is actually part of the park, which would mean the park is divided by the famous highway.  In the park on the north side of Route 66, there are a couple of commemorative objects, a broken down old car and a plaque, which pay homage to the road that once was the main wayfarer from Chicago to L.A..  We stopped for a gander and a photo before exiting the park and continuing on Route 66 to New Mexico en route to Colorado.  

An exhibit commemorating Route 66, which runs between the two sets of telephone poles.