As a digital creator specializing in off-the-beaten-path travel experiences, my mission is to inspire and guide explorers to discover hidden gems and authentic destinations on a budget. Through engaging content and insights, I aim to showcase the beauty of backroads and non-touristy places, fostering a deep connection with the culture and environment while making travel accessible to all adventure seekers.
Petrified Forest & Painted Desert
My mom had visited here with my dad about 20 years ago. It was my first visit. I will be honest, I thought the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest were different places. It was a surprise to me to find that you drive through one and right into the other. It is a pretty place...much different than my Smoky Mountains. I am glad we visited. First, it marks off another National Park for me. Second, it is a part of Route 66. Overall, it gets a lower rating for my favorite National Parks. We only drove through with a few stops. I am certain there is some hiking and probably some great things we missed by not venturing out more. It is a bit more on the boring side. My advice and take it for what it is worth, if you are trying to get all the National Parks like us then it is a must. If you are trying to do as much of Route 66 as possible, it is a must. Otherwise, if you are nearby then absolutely go visit. But if you need to go a good distance out of your way to visit it is not the most breathtaking National Park to take in. There are many National Parks I want to go back to again and again and again. This is one I can say I have been there and don't feel that I need to go back unless I just happen to be very close by. You can find a bit more history, facts, details, and tips at the links below:
Created by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 was first the Petrified Forest National Monument. It was then designated as a national park on December 9, 1962. It includes 221,390 acres.
Wildlife and plant life are abundant in the park. You can find including elk, mule deer, pronghorn, bobcat, coyote, kitfox, badger, prairie dog, porcupine, rodents of many kinds, black-tailed jackrabbit, various bats, raven, golden eagle, red-tailed hawk, burrowing owl, horned lark, scaled quail, many songbirds, hummingbirds, roadrunner, collared lizard, bullsnake, short-horned lizard, Hopi rattlesnake, side-splotch lizard, whiptail lizard, kingsnake, spadefoot toad, tiger salamander, tarantula, scorpion, many butterflies and moths, solitary bees, tarantula hawks, carpenter ants, triops, hundreds of wildflowers, yucca, cactuses, sagebrush, skunkbush, grasses such as blue grama, juniper, cottonwood, lichen, puffballs, just to name a few.
Human history dates by 13,000 years in the park and there are over 800 archeological and historic sites. Puerco Pueblo was built by the ancestral Puebloan people, occupied between A.D. 1200 and 1400. Agate House was occupied about A.D. 1100-1150 and was built out of pieces of petrified wood. Herbert David Lore built Painted Desert Inn (aka the Stone Tree House) by 1924. Using designs by National Park Service architect Lyle Bennett, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) reconstructed the Painted Desert Inn in the late 1930s. From 2004-2006 the building had an extensive rehabilitation, returning the inn to its 1949 appearance. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Petrified Forest National Park is the only national park site that contains a segment of the Historic Route 66 alignment. Part of the National Old Trails Highway also passed through the park.
Exposed at Petrified Forest is one of the most continuous sections of Triassic-aged rocks anywhere in the world. These rocks were deposited by enormous rivers between 208 and 225 million years ago and include an incredible diversity of fossils. The Chinle Formation of the Triassic Period is the main geologic formation of the park. The Bidahochi Formation outcrops in the north, laid down during the Miocene and Pliocene of the Quaternary Period, about 3-8 million years ago.
When the trees died, they washed into an ancient river system and formed log jams, buried sediment. Minerals, including silica dissolved from volcanic ash, absorbed into the porous wood over hundreds and thousands of years crystallized within the cellular structure, replacing the organic material as it broke down over time. If there were larger spaces such as a hollow or crack in the logs, crystals of clear quartz, purple amethyst, yellow citrine, and smoky quartz formed.
The brilliant colors in the petrified wood come mainly from trace minerals. Pure quartz is white, manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides provide hues from yellow through red to brown and black.
Annual visitation to the park is about 800,000 people. You can visit the Public Use Statistics Office website for all park visitation statistics.