Petrified Forest National Park and the Painted Desert

Today we took a 175 plus mile road trip in the Toad through the 94,000 acre Petrified Forest National Park and the vast Painted Desert. We entered through the north end of the Park on Interstate 40.

One of the main reasons I wanted to see the Park was to visit the Native American ruins and petroglyphs I have heard so much about.

If you look closely at the rock below, you can see the bird with the figure in its mouth that is shown on the sign above.


This boulder has several figures. Can you see the human footprint and the snake?

These are a portion of the ruins of the Puerco Pueblo. It's a 100-room pueblo built about 1250 that may have housed as many as 1250 people near the Puerco River. The Spanish explorers found the ruins abandoned when they came through in 1540.

This is the high desert country of the Painted Desert --

These are known as the "The Teepees." The distinct white areas are sandstone. The cap of The Teepees is clay. Dark layers are caused by high carbon content. Darker reds are iron-stained siltstone. Reddish bases are stained by iron oxide or hematite.

According to the Park brochure, "this high, dry grassland was once a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. Tall stately conifer trees grew along the banks. The trees fell and swollen streams washed them into adjacent floodplains. A mix of silt, mud and volcanic ash buried the logs. This sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs' decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replace the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz and the logs were preserved as petrified wood."

In the 225 million years since the trees lived, this region was uplifted. Over time, wind and water have worn away the rock layers and exposed the petrified tree remains.

Can you spot the rock logs pieces tumbled down from the log on the ledge high on this sandstone mound in the picture above? The log in the next picture lies exposed in the grassy flat.

How about the remains of this hollow log --

You can see the age rings in the stone of the one below --

Here's another broken log alongside sandstone boulders --

The logs look exactly like someone had taken a chain saw and neatly cut them into chunks ready to be split for firewood --

There are literally thousands of these petrified logs lying about. Yet the area was heavily looted before it was made a national park. They tell stories of early adventurers carrying petrified wood out of the area by wagon-loads and railroad car fulls. It's hard to imagine how many there must have been.

It was a long day today and we were both really tired when we returned to Auntie Violet for a late Easter dinner. We had taken many of the short hikes and loop trails to see close-ups of the trees (though I got in one more than Forry when he elected to take a nap at the Crystal Forest loop..). The altitude is higher at the park then in Denver and the wind was just as nasty and gusty as it was yesterday!