When traveling through the southwest, one of my favorite national parks by far was the Petrified Forest National Park. This park located in northeastern Arizona is naturally and culturally significant and quite beautiful. This area is strewn with colorful fossilized logs that date back to the Late Triassic Period. About 2,000 years ago, humans settled in and built little communities here.
Meandering trails take you throughout the park, giving you glimpses of trees that look like works of art and pueblos from hundreds to thousands of years ago show you how these prehistoric people lived. There’s even one home that looks like it was made from precious stones, which it kind of is.
Petrified Forest National Park
Today, the area surrounding the Petrified Forest consists of dry, though colorful badlands. Back in the Late Triassic Period (approximately 225 million years ago) this area was a sub-tropical forest near the equator of the earth in the supercontinent of Pangaea. The climate was very humid back then, and the fossilized trees that you see today were submerged in water and soils back then. The water preserved the logs as they slowly fossilized over time.
Over millennia, the climate turned arid and the wind slowly eroded away the top layers of geologically formed rocks to expose the colorful bands and fossilized logs that you see today. The sediments are part of the Chinle Formation, which erodes at different rates creating the geological banding that you can see on the landscape today. This phenomena is very evident in the area of the park known as the Painted Desert located on the north side of Route 66. Painted Desert was named after these colorful bands.
Agate House
About 8,000 years ago, humans first moved into the area surrounding the Petrified Forest. Pueblos throughout the park offer glimpses of the homes of people that settled in around 2,000 years ago. The Agate House is one of these Pueblos that was built around 900 AD with fragments of petrified wood. In 1933-1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) partially reconstructed the Agate House with petrified wood inlaid with clay mortar. The result is a stunning and colorful creation. This eight room house was occupied until approximately 1200 AD. Today, visitors can access it via a trail from the Rainbow Forest Museum parking area.
Souvenirs
Although there are pieces of petrified wood located all over the park, please do not pick up any. Since the park has opened, about 80% of the petrified wood that used to dot the ground has gone missing, taken as souvenirs by visitors. The phenomenon of exposed petrified wood is not only contained within the park limits. A lot of pieces have been found outside as well. If you need a piece of petrified wood as a souvenir, please, only purchase it from vendors outside of the park limits. There is no need to strip the little that remains in the conserved area.
Where is it Located?
Petrified Forest National Park is located just off of Route 66 in Apache County, Arizona about 26 miles northeast of Holbrook. A visit here gives you a perfect reason to ride the old famous Route 66. The official address is 1 Park Road, Petrified Forest, Arizona, 86028.