N. Arizona Adventure (Part 2 of 12) – Petrified Forest National Park

As the story goes....during the Late Triassic period America was several thousand miles southeast of its present location and much closer to the equator than it is today. As a result, Arizona was then at the latitude of Panama and in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean about halfway between South America and Africa. The entire North American continent was then in the tropics.

As we all know, the climate in the tropics is warm and moist, and the land usually supports all kinds of vegetation. Ancient Arizona was no exception and it was a fertile and wet land. When flooding occurred it swept away everything from trees to animals and deposited them along various ancient flood plains. Since the Late Triassic period was between 203 and 199 million years ago dead trees had a lot of time to fossilize thus creating Petrified Forest National Park.

As I mentioned in Part 1, the Petrified Forest National Park is actually two parks in one. The Painted Desert lies to the north of I-40 while the Forest covers an area south of the highway all the way down to State Route 180 – about 22 miles.

Our first stop in the Forest was at the Puerco Pueblo. This ancient pueblo was built in the 1200’s by people who eventually migrated north to join the Hopis. This is one of two sites in the Forest that feature some excellent petroglyphs. You are restricted from walking right up to the rock art but you can still see it very well with the naked eye.

The other site for numerous petroglyphs is Newspaper Rock. Again, you’re not right up against the rock art but can view them from an overlook. You'll need binoculars to really see the details.

Further down the road we came to the Tepees where the landscape changed to deep dark colors.

When we arrived at the Blue Mesa Trail we started to see petrified logs along the road. From the Blue Mesa the park road takes you past several wonderful stops - Jasper Forest, Crystal Forest and Giant Logs trails.

Altogether we spent 4 to 5 hours at both parks just stopping and walking around. We could have easily spent the entire day if we walked all of the trails. Yet one brochure we read told visitors to allow 45 minutes to tour both parks. And we witnessed many tourists following those guidelines as they sped from one vista to the next not realizing what they missed. I would allow a full day to explore both parks and stay the night at the La Posada Hotel in Winslow. That way you can really enjoy both of these national treasures.

One thing I noticed, throughout the entire day, was the way the sky changed. At one time I counted a dozen jetliners criss crossing the sky at high altitudes. Their contrails created a designs in the sky that changed with each passing plane.

Ironically the Hopi Nation lies less than 80 miles northwest of these two parks and I remembered one of their prophecies - "Near the day of purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky." Then, as the wind swept across that plateau land, I swear that I could hear the faint voices of those who lived here before or was it that song from Koyannisqatsi?

A mural on the first floor of the Hopi Room at the Watchtower overlooking the Grand Canyon.

At the end of our adventure we found ourselves at the junction of State Route 180 south of Holbrook. After a quick 18 mile drive north we found I-40 and headed west towards the Homolovi Ruins outside of Winslow which I will write about in Part 3.