My visit to Petrified Forest National Park was an immersive experience involving some amazingly beautiful rocks that were once plants with a smidgen of human history thrown in. It is full of painted desert badlands, petrified log fields, and cultural sites. Each section below represents one of the areas I visited within the park.
Blue Mesa
This is the heart of the Petrified Forest badlands. My walk took me down into the Blue Mesa basin where each colorful stripe of soil represents many years into the distant past.
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| Neighboring Badlands |
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| Coloration Almost Looks Like an Oil Spill |
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| About to Descend into the Blue Mesa Basin |
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| Within the Blue Mesa Basin |
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| One of the Walls that Encloses the Blue Mesa Basin |
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| Colored Stripes of Time |
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| Petrified Log Lays on the Edge of a Cliff |
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| Vivid Orange Petrified Log |
Agate Bridge
The fossilized tree that now forms Agate Bridge grew in a lush subtropical forest 217 million years ago. The concrete span, built in 1917, supports the 110-foot petrified log as water slowly carves the gully underneath.
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| Agate Bridge from Above |
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| Straight On View |
Jasper Forest
Here I stood on an overlook with a panoramic view of an area with a high concentration of petrified wood.
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| Common Raven (it greeted me in the parking lot...the new tour guide?) |
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| Jasper Forest |
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| Petrified Wood Scattered Across the Landscape |
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| Closer View of Petrified Wood |
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| Colors Make It Look Burnt |
Crystal Forest
This area contains a fantastic deposit of petrified logs dating back to the dawn of the dinosaurs. It is named for the quartz crystals that formed in many of the petrified logs.
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| Neighboring Terrain |
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| Formation Shaped by the Wind, Rain, and Time |
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| Crystal Forest |
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| Countless Pieces of Petrified Wood Dot the Ground |
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| Natural Forces Pushed These Pieces of Petrified Wood Together |
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| Long Log of Petrified Wood |
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| Looking Along the Long Log |
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| Petrified Tree Rings |
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| Cross Section of a Petrified Log |
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| Quartz in the Petrified Wood |
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| Amazing Colors in the Petrified Wood |
Agate House
Agate House was originally built with agatized wood blocks and mud mortar. It likely housed a single family sometime between 1050 and 1300. It consisted of eight rooms; each entered via a ladder through the ceiling. What we see today is a reconstruction using original materials.
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| Petrified Wood on the Way to Agate House |
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| Closer View of Some Petrified Wood |
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| Agate House |
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| Petrified Wood Mortared Together |
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| Interior of a Room with a Ladder through the Roof |
Long Logs
About 218 million years ago, flood waters carried fallen trees to this area. Some of them stood 200 feet tall. After being quickly covered with sediment, the prehistoric logs slowly petrified.
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| Petrified Logs with Black and Gray Mounds in the Background |
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| Gray Formation |
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| Petrified Logs |
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| Long Logs (area's namesake) |
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| It Almost Looks Like Live Bark |
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| Petrified Log Stretches Into the Distance |
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| Looks Like It Just Washed Up on the Beach |
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| Blood Red Petrified Wood |
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