Trees settled into stone

There is no boasting in the name Petrified Forest National Park. Coming in from the north, the signature piece takes a while to reveal itself. 

The Painted Desert occupies much of the park land north of Interstate 40, along with the only stretch of U.S. Route 66 contained within a national park. A forest turned to stone lies in chunks across the southern half of the park. 

I feared it might look sad after the crazy amount of looting that occurred before and after the land received park protection. But a ranger told me the bigger problem these days is people taking little pieces, not trying to haul off a fossilized log weighing several hundred pounds. 

Like most visitors, I started from the north part of the park, which extends into the Painted Desert and is mostly preserved as wilderness, which does not have roads or allow any motorized uses. 

Different badland formations can feel alike, but the bright red rocks of the Chinle formation raise the ante. As part of the Colorado Plateau (yes, that one again), it bears resemblance to nearby Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation and the Utah national parks such as Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef. 

Originally the second national monument named by President Theodore Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act in 1906, Petrified Forest became a national park in 1962, calling itself “Northern Arizona’s other national park.” 

One of the more significant outlooks includes the Painted Desert Inn, an adobe building constructed for tourists on Route 66 in the 1920s and refurbished many times in the past century (it hasn’t offered lodging for decades). Along with the gift shop and an ice cream parlor, the views into the Painted Deserted below the inn are among the best along the rim. 

While mostly a blue-sky afternoon, a smattering of clouds crossed the sun and cast the badlands of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest in some interesting light. Shadows moved in patches across the red and gray banded rocks. 

At times, Petrified Forest reminded me of Badlands National Park crossed with the Black Hills Petrified Forest, a private site in southwest South Dakota. The hilltop forest has numerous fossil logs and trees. But those trees date to “only” 110 million years ago. 

The teepees

Arizona's fossil forest dates back 226 million years to the late Triassic Period, a time rich with reptiles but not dinosaurs, who had not yet emerged. Crocodilians similar to those of today were dominant in this terrain, which sat close to the equator as part of the supercontinent Pangaea. Phytosaurs, another large reptile family that predates the dinosaurs that were known for long snouts and armored bodies, have been found regularly. Some are the only examples of their species found. 

No area looked more like Badlands that the Tepees, a series of pointed rock formations surrounded by flatland. They only received a few visitors, since the hills covered in fallen logs lied just to the south. 

Most of the trees belong to an extinct conifer species. As erosion continues, more fossils become uncovered. The Giant Logs area outside the Rainbow Forest Museum preserves fossils of several large Triassic creatures found in the formations. Rainbow Forest’s historic buildings housed the park headquarters from 1920 until the 1960s. 

Staying in Holbrook left me open for a morning venture back into the park. Many of the top petrified wood sites drew heavy crowds in the afternoon, and I wanted to explore them at a different time of day.

 I hit the gate at 7:43 a.m. so I could wander freely once it swung open at 8. The decision gave me the solitude I wanted in this beautiful spot that thrived before the dinosaurs. 

Agate Bridge

At 8:05 a.m., Crystal Forest was mine alone. No one wandered through the wind-pummeled hills covered with ancient trees turned to stone. Some logs had quartz and other minerals that had replaced living tissue across geologic eras. Desert rodents darted between shady spots. The wind just roared, pushing the hat off my head repeatedly. As I headed north, the main stopping points stayed quiet. The wind was everywhere, even as people stayed scarce. 

Agate Bridge might be the most visible sign that even in a park of ancient trees, the landscape never stops changing. The 100-foot-plus petrified log that forms Agate Bridge will eventually tumble into the gully that has formed beneath it. A concrete support constructed beneath it in 1917 won’t be enough to stop the work of weathering. 

The trip to Blue Mesa takes a little time to reveal its majesty. The desert appears empty, then the road climbs atop the mesa, named for the high ground’s blue-gray stone. A trail descends into depths of the mesa, but I was short on time. 

Blue Mesa views

No trail gets close to the Magazine Rocks, which contain 2,000 years of petroglyphs. Even with the interstate and the railroad running through the park, it has been a crossroads for far longer. Early human inhabitants lived in pit houses to accompany above-ground farms. 

Around 1,000 years ago, Petrified Forest included several pueblo communities, the ruins still standing today. When the land became drier and inhospitable, the Ancestral Puebloans migrated to nearby Hopi and Zuni lands. But the most famous route crossing Petrified Forest is Route 66. For generations, Route 66 ferried Americans west. 

Most of the route has been decommissioned and replaced by Interstate 40. Holbrook still bears the marks of the historic route. In Petrified Forest, a rusted car frame and path of the road are all that remains amid the waving grasses. 

There will always be migrations. The only section of Route 66 contained within a national park, this stretch was no different than the Indian trails or wagon ruts that provide evidence of early migrations across the rugged portions of the American West. 

Petrified Forest can claim 200 million years of migrations, from the Triassic reptiles that inhabited this forest to the wall of trucks roaring along Interstate 40.

Magazine Rock and its many petroglyphs

Old path of Route 66