I Am Not Petrified You'll Paint Me Naked in the Desert
Written: Nov 30 '04
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Pros: Unusual scenery; perhaps no where will you see petrified logs like this.
Cons: Hot, very little shade, might get boring.
The Bottom Line: This is a very unusual Park. Though compared to others I can't give it 5 stars, it still is a must see.
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| jo.com's Full Review: Petrified Forest National Park |
June 15, 2004 found us for the second time in a dozen years in the Petrified Forest National Park.
General Information:
Is this the Painted Desert of the Petrified Forest? It is both. The entire region that stretches over 1500 square miles is the Painted Desert. Petrified Forest National Park is within the Painted Desert and is located on both sides of Interstate 40 in Arizona. The North Entrance is on 40; the South Entrance is on Route 180.
You can visit this Park in the summer from 7:00am to 7::00pm and in the winter from 8:00am to 5:00pm. There is no lodging in the Park; camping is limited to backpacking into the Wilderness area. For more information call the Park at 928-524-6228.
The cost to enter is $10.00 for a 7-day pass. There is an annual pass for $20.00. If you walk, bike or motorcycle in it will cost you $5.00. I highly recommend a National Park Pass if you do any traveling for $50 a year.
We had the entire day to spend here and did spend 6 plus hours. The newsletter gives you some tips on what to do if you have one hour, several hours, half a day or more than one day. I will tell you what we did and add in other sites that might be of interest.
Most restrooms, visitor centers and picnic areas are accessible or accessible with help for wheelchair users. Long Logs, Agate House, Crystal Forest, and Puerco Pueblo trails are paves. Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark is ramped. Service animals are welcome as are pets on leashes except for the Wilderness Areas, which is an area of over 50,000 acres.
What we did, what to expect and do:
There are three visitor centers in the Park. We started our day at the Painted Desert Visitor Center where you will find a gift shop, restaurant, gas station and post office. There are exhibits in this Visitor Center and an orientation film shown every half hour. It is 20-minutes long and if you have the time, I would recommend it. We always watch the videos wherever we go if possible. (We snuck Hanna in- dogs are not allowed in buildings). All the Visitor Centers have bookstores and restrooms.
There is a 28-mile park road with many, many overlooks. We stopped at every overlook, walked all the shorter trails, which were very easy to maneuver and marveled at the scenery. I was most taken by the teepees or cones in the Painted Desert. These are structures with layers of blue, purple and gray created by iron, carbon, manganese and other minerals in a cone shaped formation. You will see huge structures with white layers. These are buttes (can be flat topped but are higher than wide. A butte can erode from a mesa.) or mesas (A flat topped landform with steep sides usually wider than tall.) You will see structures layered in sandstone. What looks like painting comes from dark layers caused by high carbon content; darker red are iron-stained siltstone and reddish basis are stained by iron oxide which is also called hematite. So if you can imagine an area filled with structures that look like this you can imagine how it got its name, the Painted Desert.
We stopped at every lookout, and walked all the little trails, most of which were very easy to maneuver. After the visitor center we went to overlooks that give spectacular views of the Painted Desert. These are Tiponi, Tawa, Kachina, Chinde, Pintado, Nizhoni, Whipple and Lacey Points. Kachina Point is where the Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark is. You can go in and see photo exhibits and tour the building. There really is not much to see here. There are restrooms; a small information desk and books for sale. Hanna could not go in so my husband and I took turns visiting. The stop here was about 10 minutes.
We walked the 1 mile loop at Tawa and Kachina Points. It winds through the rim where you will see lots of plants and maybe some animals. It is a gorgeous walk. It is easy though not paved with wayside exhibits and plant identification signs. It will be very tempting to go off the trail and walk on the rocks but try to refrain from doing so.
We then came to Puerco Pueblo with a .3 mile loop. This was a 100 room pueblo with not much left. You will just walk a short paved trail reading the wayside exhibits and seeing some petroglyphs.
Newspaper rock comes next. There are actually two huge rocks and many small ones on which you will see hundreds of petroglyphs. The area is closed because of vandalism so you can only see them from above and behind a barrier. We had binoculars with us. If you do not it is if fine because they have free spotting scopes to use. From them you will get some great views of the petroglyphs. Some can be seen with the naked eye but it will be nicer close up.
After a couple of other overlooks we stopped at Blue Mesa and Blue Mesa Trail. We did not walk the entire 4 mile loop primarily because it was 97 degrees and the desert! What we did see was spectacular. One mile of this that we did not walk is said to be strenuous and steep. Although there is no actual demarcation or a sign that says Entering the Petrified Forest since that is not how it works, we were now in the Petrified Forest area.
We came to many short trails in this area. Crystal Forest and trail is an easy .8 mile paved trail through an amazing forest almost literally of unbelievable colored petrified logs that once held (and some still do) glassy amethyst and quartz crystal. I really had no recollection of these gorgeous logs from 12 years ago. At first glance you might just see them as a bunch of logs, wonder why they are called petrified and move on. Please do not. You will be missing some amazing sites that you probably have not seen elsewhere.
Our longest walk was to Agate House. This was 2 miles round trip and difficult only because it was so hot. Most of it was paved and I was happy once we got to this small pueblo that is partially restored of petrified wood because there was a bench there. We combined this with Long Logs Trail a 1.6 miles round-trip. Try to do this one as well. This is where there are the most petrified wood in the Park.
We continued to our last stop which was Giant Logs. This is a .4 mile loop with some of the largest and most colorful logs in the park. One of them is almost ten feet across at the base.
My final thoughts:
Thank you for coming on my journey with me. Do not forget sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat and water. On a brutally hot, dry day even a short, easy walk can be tough and you will have to have plenty of water.
We did not find a lot of people here. Perhaps the height of the summer is not the best time to visit this Park! We were never alone but we were also never in a crowd.
The Petrified National Park is a must see. I was not all that thrilled about going back. My husband pushed for it. While we were there and in retrospect I am glad I did. Seeing it again without children was a much different experience. Please do not avoid it because of children. Your children will enjoy it as well as ours did way back when. I will say though that after they see a few logs they may not want to see more since many look the same.
Feel free to leave me a comment or question.
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Please feel free to ask me a question or leave a comment.
I am keeping track of the reviews I am writing chronicling our 3-month cross country trip:
Applebee's in Ohio
Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky
Bella Notte This is a restaurant in Lexington, Kentucky
Buckstaff Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas
Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas
Bicentennial Mall State Park in Nashville, TN
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN
Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN
National Civil Right Museum in Memphis, TN
Graceland in Memphis, TN
Rum Boogie Cafe in Memphis, TN
National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma
Souper Salad in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Petroglyph National Monumentin Albuquerque, New Mexico
Taste of Thai a San Diego restaurant
Handlery Hotel in San Diego, CA
Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Los Angeles, CA
Kan Zam restaurant in San Francisco, CA
Polker’s Gourmet Burgers in San Francisco
Holiday Inn Express in San Francisco, CA
Hanzell Vineyards in Sonoma, CA
Beringer Vineyards
The Coffee Gardenin Napa Valley, CA
Antelope Island State Park in Salt Lake City, Utah
Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah
Mount Rushmore
Montreal Holcaust Museum
Recommended:
Yes
Best time to go: March-May
Recommended for: Anybody
Review Topic: Overview
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