Visiting Petrified Forest National Park

As we were driving to Winslow we passed by the Petrified Forest National Park and decided we would return to visit it during our stay. This park is well known for its fossilized trees and dinosaurs from the Late Triassic some 225 million years ago. It has a $25 fee for a five day pass but we used our Lifetime Senior Pass for free admission.

The park is huge and covers some 346 square miles of mostly desert shrub steppe. Another feature in the park is the colorful painted desert which resembles the highly eroded and colorful badlands of South Dakota. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name. At 5,400 feet in elevation, the park gets warm but cools off overnight.

There are more than 400 species of plants to see in the park. The blue grama and sideoats grama (the Texas state grass) were in full bloom amongst the sagebrush, saltbush, and rabbitbrush. Crazy to think that all this land was forested and was once near the equator which then made it humid and sub-tropical. At that time streams flowing across the plains deposited inorganic sediment and organic matter along with lots of trees as well as some animals that had fallen into the water.

Over time many plants and animals became fossilized into what is known geologically as the Chinle Formation. Much of the park’s petrified wood were mostly Araucarioxylon arizonicum, an extinct conifer tree.There have been nine species of fossilized trees in the park identified, all of which are now extinct. However, trees are not the only fossils in the park as other plant and animals are found here too. Vertebrates such as phytosaurs, a giant crocodile like reptiles. Also found here were large salamander-like amphibians called Koskinonodon, and other early dinosaurs.

The road through the park is 29 miles one way with numerous pullouts for features and short hikes. One trail we visited called the Crystal Forest Trail is a short paved loop with lots of colorful petrified logs to marvel. Another overlook further down the road is the Jasper Forest which also has lots of petrified wood to see.

Nearby is Agate Bridge where the erosive forces of water carved a gully under a huge petrified log. We also stopped to check out Newspaper Rock. Here there are  hundreds of petroglyphs more than 2,000 years old. We also stopped to view the Painted Desert and the Painted Desert Inn at  Pintado Point (which was closed due to Covid). There is a hike at Pintado Point but it was a bit too hot this day for a long hike in the desert.

Our last stop was at the Visitor Center which has some nice exhibits at the Rainbow Forest Museum to see. There were even a few fully restored skeletons of some of the fossilized critters who once roamed this area. There is a nice trail in back of the museum through a large patch of petrified fallen logs including one that was visited by Albert Einstein. I had to pose in front of the same petrified log, “Old Faithful,” a 35-foot log, where Einstein posed for a photo in 1931.

We had another fun and educational day on our Road of Retirement…

NOTE:  We are currently in Mesa, Arizona until November 1st…