Travel Review: Petrified Forest National Park
Entry Fee: $25 per vehicle or a valid National Parks pass. More about the park fees HERE.
Parking: Free parking lots and turn-outs at most points of interest.
Petrified Forest National Park is a small national park in Northeastern Arizona. It includes the Painted Desert and part of historic Route 66. It's a park that can easily be seen in a day, which is exactly what we did, and there is one singular road that runs north to south through it. From the visitor center at one end to the visitor center at the other, it's about 26 miles and takes about 40-45 minutes to drive it. Of course, with all of the stops along the way, the journey will take a bit longer.
We started at the north end of the park where you enter right off of I-40. We made a quick stop at the Painted Desert Visitor Center which has bathrooms and is the only place in the park with food service. The Rainbow Forest Visitor Center at the other end has some snacks for purchase, but that's about it. The diner at the Painted Desert Visitor Center has a fun retro vibe, including a juke box! But I can't speak to the food because we didn't buy anything there.
From there, you continue into the park, going through the entrance where you'll need to pay the entry fee or show a pre-purchased pass.
There are a number of turn-outs and view points, especially in this northern section of the Painted Desert. The first stop we made was at the Painted Rim Trailhead which had a small parking lot and included some placards about the geology of the area. The trail itself follows the cliffside that overlooks the Painted Desert and will bring you all the way over the the Painted Desert Inn if you do the whole trail. It's about 0.6 miles one way, 1.2 miles out and back; and it's a fairly easy trail to do.
We went about halfway along the trail before turning back because the Painted Desert Inn is also reachable by car and is the next major stop along the route through the park.
Just down the road, we stopped at the Painted Desert Inn which is an adobe building and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. It's now a museum and has a vista point you can walk out to from the parking lot.
After the Painted Desert Inn, there are a handful more viewpoints along the Painted Desert section of the park that you can stop at. But the next major stop for us was the old Route 66 stop. This point of interest has a small parking lot you can pull in to and includes an old, rusted out car and a marker indicating where the old route 66 used to be (before the nearby highway was constructed). It's a cool, little photo op.
You'll then drive over the Route 66 highway, leaving the painted desert behind. But don't worry, there are plenty more weird, colorful rocks ahead. And we haven't even gotten to the petrified wood yet!
About 5 and a half miles down the road is Puerco Pueblo, the remnants of an old Pueblo village that was active during the 13th and 14th centuries. The ruins also have some cool petroglyphs. The path around the Pueblo is only 0.3 miles long and if you are interested in learning about the people who used to live in the area long ago, this is a nice and easy stop. The parking lot is fairly big and contains bathrooms if you are in need of some at this point in your journey.
Just a short hop further down the road is the Newspaper Rock, a set of giant rocks with over 650 petroglyphs carved into them. It's quite a sight to see. The rocks themselves are not viewable close up, but there is a viewing platform just off the parking lot that juts out from a cliff and looks down onto the rocks. In order to get a closer look at the petroglyphs, you either need to use the binoculars provided on the platform, or have a telephoto lens on a camera.
Here is where you'll start to get into some really weird-looking landscapes. Our next stop was the Blue Mesa Trail, but you'll see the strange blue dome landscape even before the turn off. There is a 2.4 mile trail off the main road called the Historic Blue Forest Trail. We skipped this one though and took the right turn on to Blue Mesa Scenic Road which includes a short driving loop and plenty of turn-outs to stop at for the view.
About half way around the driving loop is the Blue Mesa Trail, a 1 mile loop hike which I would definitely recommend. It's a paved walking path that descends down into an alien-looking landscape. The blue and purple rocks are just so otherworldly. The loop itself is fairly flat and then you climb back up the hill to the parking lot.
Once back on the main road, there are three more major stops before you get to the south end of the park. We stopped at Agate Bridge (which is just a spot were you can see a fossilized tree trunk acting as a bridge) and Jasper Forest (which is a lookout point where you can see a TON of petrified wood from a far). The final stop is THE stop to make if you want to see petrified wood up close. That stop is Crystal Forest.
Crystal Forest has a larger parking lot (no bathrooms though) and a paved path that totals about a mile. It loops around an area that has hundreds of petrified wood pieces. The wood is all over the place and comes right up to the path so you can really see the crystalized interior of the wood. Plus, there is signage explaining how the wood gets petrified which is really interesting. The loop is fairly flat so it's an easy walk. Definitely a highlight of the National Park.
After the Crystal Forest, the drive brings you to the Rainbow Forest Visitor Center. There are a couple more trail options that stem from here but we opted not to do them. Those include the Giant Logs (behind the visitor center) and the Agate House.
When you're done with the National Park, continue south and you'll exit out onto US-180.
Overall, we really enjoyed Petrified Forest National Park. It's small but it's got some really cool features that you won't see in many other places!
Bottom Line: An underrated National Park with some unique landscapes and, of course, petrified wood. The park is small enough where it can be seen all in one day.
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