Spring 2024 Southwestern Swing, 4.01.24 - 5.06.24, Part 5, Petrified Forest National Park
Petrified Forest National Park had been on my list for quite some time so I was excited to finally be checking it out. This would be the third National Park on this trip. It is located kind’ve out in the middle of nowhere. East of Sedona, south of Monument Valley, but not really close to either. It’s listed as a five and a half hour drive from Chiricahua but we made a couple of stops and it took us about seven and a half hours to get to the southern entrance to the park. Along the way we went through a particularly nice area near Globe, Arizona highlighted by the Salt River Canyon and hills covered in saguaro cactus.
A forest of saguaro (photo courtesy of Bridgit)
At the southern entrance is a couple of gift shops and two options for camping just below the park boundary. One is a dry camping parking lot and the parking lot across the street has electric hookups but no water. We had no trouble getting a hookup site and had filled our water before arriving so we were in good shape. When we arrived we were the only ones camped there. Later on a few other rigs came but it never filled up.
Petrified Forest is another one of the National Parks that doesn’t stay open twenty-four hours and that’s really too bad. You can get a special free dark sky permit but I don’t think that applies to the early morning hours unless you camp in the back country.
By the time we got there and got settled in it was around three o’clock. We took the Jeep into the park and went to the Rainbow Forest Museum and Visitor Center. Directly behind the visitor center is a .4 mile loop called the Giant Logs Loop. As advertised, it winds through some incredible specimens of petrified logs. There were tons of them scattered all over the place. The longer trees looked like a lumberjack had come along and sawed them into five foot sections. It turns out that gravity did the carving. The petrified trees laying on the ground were harder than the soil beneath so as the soil eroded from underneath the logs, their sheer weight was too much to bear and pieces would simply break off.
Petrified Forest National Park map
Big ol’ petrified tree
Next we drove up the one main road through the park about three quarters of the way to the north end before turning around. We would do more thorough exploring the next day so this was more of a quick look-see. Driving through the park is a bit mis-leading. From the road it seems like a mostly featureless landscape. The colors are flat (at least during the day) and there isn’t much to see. As we discovered, you really need to get out of the car and do the hikes to see what this park is all about. Near our turnaround point near Newspaper Rock however was a hilly section of badlands. This was a cool area and I’m sure it would be way more stunning in the early or late sunlight.
Petrified Forest badlands
We made another stop and hiked the .75 mile Crystal Forest Loop. I liked this one more than the Giant Logs Loop because the logs were more interesting. It was also around five in the afternoon so the light was improving as the sun sank lower in the sky. There were a lot of specimens that had crystalized wood in all sorts of fantastic colors. I read this is caused when minerals from volcanic ash absorbed into the porous wood and crystalized over the millennia.
Crystal Forest Loop
Crystal Forest Loop
Crystal Forest Loop
Crystal Forest Loop
Crystal Forest Loop
It is really a shame that the park isn’t open twenty-four hours. I had big expectations for a sunrise hike but sunrise was at 5:44AM and the gates didn’t open until 8AM (I wonder if Bridgit had anything to do with this decision). Making the most of what we had to work with, we were the second car through the gate at 8AM. Halfway up the main road is a side road that leads to a spot called Blue Mesa Overlook. From there you can hike down a paved trail and do a loop of Blue Mesa. We also planned to do that loop, but our idea was to approach it from a more scenic route.
Not too far beyond the turnoff to Blue Mesa are two big mounds called The Tepees. We parked in a pullout just before the tepees. This was the start of the Blue Forest Trail. You won’t find it on the park maps and it is not even signed so it is far less travelled than other trails in the park. Plus, being the first ones there, we had the entire hike to ourselves until our return to the Jeep.
What a fun hike this was! We started up a wide wash towards where Blue Mesa is. Once we reached the base of the badland hills the fun began. A narrow trail switchbacked steeply up into the badlands and eventually popped out onto a broad plain of crazy geology. From there it continued to climb up quite a bit higher until we topped out onto a high ridge. The views back down to the valley were great and we could see that the trail wound its way along a narrow spine on the top of the ridge. Chunks of petrified wood were all over the hillsides. As we hiked up and down along the narrow spine, we eventually could see the Blue Mesa Overlook. As we got even closer we came to a spot where the trail dropped very steeply down into the bowl where the Blue Mesa Loop was. We dropped down the narrow trail until we came to the paved Blue Mesa Loop. So far we had not seen another person. As we began to follow the loop counter-clockwise, we did come upon an Apache man doing an oil painting of Blue Mesa. It was beginning to get warm and there was no shade up on the ridge so as we came around to the eastern side of the loop we stopped in the shade for a break. After our break we continued around the loop, passing the junction with the side trail that climbs up to Blue Mesa Overlook and back to where we connected with the paved trail. Then we simply followed our trail back up to the ridge and eventually back to the Jeep. We did meet a few people along the way back and enjoyed chatting with them about their travels. The weather had been perfect and we both really enjoyed this hike a lot.
Along the Blue Forest Trail
Along the Blue Forest Trail
Along the Blue Forest Trail
Along the Blue Forest Trail
Looking down to the Blue Mesa Trail from up on the ridge
The Blue Mesa Loop Trail
Looking back up to where we dropped into Blue Mesa
After our thoroughly enjoyable hike, we took the middle part of the day to relax. I had finally figured out how the open/close system worked in this park so I was prepared for how our evening would go. My desire was to photograph the sunset on the Painted Desert. Technically, the entire park is within the greater Painted Desert. However, if you drive to the northern end of the park you will cross Interstate 40 to the northernmost section of Petrified Forest National Park. This part of the park has a six mile long road that hugs the rim of a higher mesa looking out over the beautiful multi-colored hills of the Painted Desert to the north. At the end of this road is the main visitor center for the park.
The park closes the entry gates at 5PM but then asks everyone inside the park at that time to be out by 7PM. Because I planned to be in the northern sector until at least 7PM, that meant I would not be able to return to the southern sector since it closed at 5PM. I was okay with that. I could still exit the northern sector, drive west on I-40 about 20 miles to Holbrook and then head back another twenty miles on 180 to our camp just outside the park boundary.
To be on the safe side, when we got to the northern visitor center, I secured a free dark sky permit to allow me to stay beyond 7PM. Once all that was in place, we drove back to all the overlook points in the northern sector to find the best spots to shoot the sunset. The ones furthest to the eastern side appealed to me most. From the furthest eastern overlook called Tiponi Point to Kachina Point at the historic Painted Desert Inn, everything looked great. There is also a 1.2 mile out and back trail called the Painted Desert Rim Trail that hugs the rim from Tawa Point to the Painted Desert Inn.
With the sunset at 7:04PM, I set out on the Painted Desert Rim Trail around 6PM. It was a very pleasant evening and I was comfortable in just a t-shirt. Over the next hour I walked along the trail from Tawa Point to Kachina Point and back again. The light was really nice at that hour and with the trail being pretty much flat the entire way, it was a great evening stroll more than a hike. As it turned out, I really didn’t need a dark sky permit as low clouds muted the light right at sunset. But the light had been fantastic up to that point so it was a good day. And that wrapped up our two night visit to Petrified Forest National Park. Our next leg of the trip was one of the top three things I was looking forward to and the anticipation was palpable. Now the serious adventuring would begin!
The Painted Desert
The Painted Desert
The Painted Desert