Want to see something unusual, so come on my friend on to a one-day trip to Petrified Forest National Park. The park has so much to offer to start with quartz-wrapped trees as old as 225 million years to badlands with colors ranging from orange/red on the northern side of the park to blue, gray, white, and purple in mostly in the central part. And finally to a gigantic deposit of petrified woods on the southern side.
The Park is basically bisected by I-40. It’s in a stretch of 26 miles from the North visitor center(painted desert Visitor Center) to the south(rainbow Forest Museum), which is easily doable in a single day.
We drove to the National park from Sedona via Flagstaff, Arizona, and stayed the night in a hotel in Holbrook, Arizona which is about 25 miles from the northern entrance of the National Park. And the very next day we drove through the entire parks and visited all the viewpoints which I’m going to list down along with photos so keep reading!
There are two entrances the north is close to I-40 and the south entrance is closed to US 180. Before driving inside the park I would definitely suggest to go the visitor center and ask about the timing of the park along with if any program is available for demonstration in the Paleontology Lab during the time you visit. We had to skip because of time constraints.
The 26 miles Scenic Drive starts from Painted Desert Visitor Center where you will pass through a number of viewpoints with breathtaking views of the barren orange-hued badlands.
Along the drive, we stopped at the Painted Desert Inn which is a National Historic Landmark at the Kachina Point.
Along the drive, you can witness a rusted 1932 Studebaker off the side of the road which acts as a mark that the old route 66 once crossed through the park.
After crossing I-40 basically in the central part of the park you can make a quick stop at the Newspaper Rock petroglyphs. Here you can try spotting some of the petroglyphs. Further, we continued through the drive, and all of a sudden we came across red and gray formations which are basically badlands erosional formations aptly named The Tepees. The vibe out there is just so serene and seems like a painting in reality.
The next amazing spot is the Blue Mesa which is a 1-mile loop where you can view the layered shades of purple, blue, gray, and white hills of Bentonite clay. Even we saw our first petrified wood while walking on the loop which is scattered on the hill beds. If you are unwilling to walk down the loop you can look at the formations from above which are also wonderful. The most magical thing in the area is to look at the shades of the clay which seems so unreal but it is!
Finally comes the star of the show the Crystal Forest where you can walk on the paved Crystal Forest Loop which is about 0.75 miles and is very easy to walk. It basically houses fallen woods that have gone through the process of Petrification and are about 225 million years old. Now you must be thinking about how are they formed(I thought about it when I heard it for the first time) so in simple terms petrification takes about millions of years when trees are buried beneath layers of silt and the silica mainly replaces the organic molecules in the wood and creating a replica of quartz. Mineral impurity in the quartz gives wood its various color such as iron oxides gives red, yellow, orange, and purple. Manganese oxides give black and gray, pure quartz gives white. (got this information from one of the boards in the national park)
Photos are taken from the Crystal Forest.
The 26-mile Scenic drive is definitely smooth and peaceful with amazing viewpoints along the way. It’s worth visiting the place at least for a day.