Spend a Day at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

Petrified Forest NPPetrified Forest was top on my list of attractions to visit in Arizona, and it was just as intriguing and spectacular as I had hoped. If you approach Petrified Forest with an interest in exploring a very unique, ancient natural site, you will enjoy your trip immensely. If you visit hoping to find an attraction as dramatic or picturesque as the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley, you may be disappointed.

As much as I enjoyed touring these two larger, more famous Arizona attractions, the Petrified Forest National Park was much more relaxed and less crowded. I visited in July, and although I was rarely out of view of other visitors, I never felt overwhelmed by crowds. Another advantage of visiting Petrified Forest is you essentially get to see two attractions at once. The north part is the Painted Desert, badlands area of the park, while the southern part is where the Petrified Forest is located.

I planned to make a day of visiting Petrified Forest, and there was plenty to keep me occupied and intrigued for 6 hours. You could opt to cruise the 28-mile road through the park in about 45 minutes, stop at a few pull-offs and call it a tour. I chose to load up a cooler with plenty of water and a picnic lunch and spend the day exploring trails.

Start your Tour with an Orientation

I started my tour of Petrified Forest National Park at the northern entrance, and took the time to watch an orientation film at the Visitor Center. Like many natural attractions, it is next to impossible to completely understand or fully appreciate what you will see at Petrified Forest if you don't invest some effort in learning about it. The orientation film is only 20 minutes. At the very least, getting to know the area you are about to enter is worthwhile.

Exploring the Painted Desert

Painted DesertIf you aren't in a hurry to whiz through Petrified Forest National Park, you can take the time to stop and visit the many overlooks along the way. There are so many beautiful and intriguing geological features and structures in the Painted Desert, you will probably find yourself as captivated, as I did. Huge buttes, mesas, colorful teepees and cones are some of the gorgeous natural features that give the Painted Desert its name.

You can view and photograph the Painted Desert at one of the many stops you will begin to encounter after leaving the Visitor's Center. Kachina Point is definitely worth a visit, as the building here features some photo exhibits (and there are restrooms).

The 1-mile loop trail at Tawa and Kachnia Points is not paved, but it is a very easy walk along the rim of the Painted Desert badlands. This was my first walk in the Park, and I was delighted to see plant identification markers that made it easy to spot interesting vegetation along the way.

The short, .3-mile loop at Puerco Pueblo is paved, and you can see some petroglyphs as well as the remains of what was once a 100-room pueblo. If you are interested in petroglyphs, you won't want to bypass the next stopping point, Newspaper Rock. There are hundreds of petroglyphs here, but as you can only views them from a distance behind a barrier, the majority are best seen with binoculars!

Touring the Petrified Forest

Crystal ForestBy the time I reached Blue Mesa overlook, it was in the 90s, so I bypassed Blue Mesa Trail and headed in to the area of the Park that is the actual Petrified Forest. There are many short, easy trails you can choose to explore in this part of the Park, so you can see a variety of intriguing sites on foot without exhausting yourself in the heat.

Crystal Forest trail is a .8 mile paved trail through extraordinarily beautiful, colored petrified logs. Some of the logs contain dazzling amethyst and quartz crystals, and you will want to take many photographs of this unique ancient forest.

You can see a great deal of petrified wood along the Long Logs Trail, and you can see an ancient log jam here, as well. I combined this walk with the Agate House hike. Both trails are paved, and if you stop for lunch or a snack first, you will not find the 2.6-mile walk too strenuous. The Agate House is a partially reconstructed pueblo made of petrified wood.

There is a Park Museum at this end of the Park where I took a short break from hiking, but I chose to end my visit to Petrified Forest with the Giant Logs walk. This is a short, .4 mile hike featuring the most colorful petrified logs in the Park. The biggest log in the park is located at the top of the trail. At over 10 feet across at its base, it was an excellent grand finale!