Petrified Forest - Painted Desert Itinerary and Travel Tips

Another great Arizona weekend trip or add-on to any Horseshoe Bend/Antelope Canyon/Grand Canyon adventure is a visit is to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. The drive is about 3.5 hours from Phoenix, Page, or the Grand Canyon.

The unique landscape of Petrified Forest National Park

Since most people aren’t in the mood to drive several hours after working or touring another site all day, this version of the itinerary assumes leaving early in the morning and starting your tour mid-day. This means splitting the park visit into two half days to experience it without feeling rushed.

Before we get on the road, I should mention the best way to manage National Park entrance fees is to get an annual America the Beautiful Pass. They cost $80 for those of us under 65 years and $20 for seniors. If you are planning to visit more than a couple of parks in 12 months, this investment pays out fast. You can get a Pass as you enter any park with a Ranger Station on duty. It’s handy to keep this Pass with you when you travel because it’s also good at National Monuments and National Forests, expanding the value equation further.

Pro tip: Get nearly 13 months value out of a 12 month Pass by buying it as close to the beginning of the month as possible. All Passes are hole-punched for validity through the end of the month you purchased in the following year. In case that isn’t clear. If you buy your Pass March 1, 2021, it will be valid until the end of March, 2022.

Day 1: Plan to arrive as early as possible and certainly by mid-day as the park closes at 5pm. Rangers do lock the gates, so you need to pay attention to avoid an unexpected overnight park experience. Get a map from the Park Ranger so you know locations of the scenic overlooks and hiking trails along the way. You can access a digital version of the map on your phone but, trust me, the printed version is much easier to maneuver in this case. Start at the southern entrance and work your way north, stopping at as many overlooks and exploratory trails as your afternoon allows.

Petrified Forest is also one of the dog friendliest National Parks. You can bring pets everywhere except inside buildings. Typically, dogs are restricted to state parks and not able to join you in National Parks. Feel free to bring Fido on this adventure.

It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway - never, ever, leave your dog locked in a car in Arizona. The sun and cloudless skies elevate daytime temperatures so quickly it creates a deadly situation before you think twice.

Back to the National Park. Petrified Forest is relatively narrow and 28 miles long. Driving straight through with no stops (why would you?) takes about an hour.

Stop 1: Stop at the Rainbow Forest Museum if you’re into history. If not, head straight to Giant Logs trail located across the parking lot. It’s highly rated, short at only .4 miles, paved, and filled with some of the largest diameter logs in the park. The kids will love this area and it’s among the easiest to navigate for those with mobility issues. Giant Logs trail will consume about an hour of your time.

Stop 2: Just up the road, with its 2.6 mile Long Logs and Agate House trail, is a “must-do” stop that will take a couple of hours to fully appreciate. The density of logs is high in this area so this is fun early stop as you will be awestruck by the amount of dazzling petrified wood strewn about here.

Portion of Agate House in the southern end of Petrified Forest National Park

Agate House, at the far end of this trail, is an 8 room pueblo built of petrified wood that was used as a single family dwelling between 1050 and 1300.

I felt like a kid in a candy store picking up (to look at and put back) colorful pieces of petrified wood and making up stories about the abstract designs found in them.

This one was my favorite. It tells the story of a happy couple simply enjoying a moment, chatting and watching a beautiful sunset, atop a colorful plateau. Basking in the warm glow of the setting sun and each other, not a thought or a worry on their minds.

I like how the rock seems more in focus on the people/plateau while the sunset/clouds are hazier (this is the rock itself, not a photography effect). And I love how the shape reminds me of a wise owl with its pointy ears watching over the scene.

By this point you may be wondering, "how old is the Petrified Forest and how did it come to be?"

It so happens, the trees are from the Late Triassic period - about 225 million years ago. Most of them are of the 9 different, now extinct, species of pine that have been identified in the park.

Growth rings and wood grain visible in petrified wood sample at Petrified Forest National Park

These petrified logs and other fossils were created because the original matter was buried quickly by volcanic ash sediment. Groundwater dissolved silica from the ash where it formed crystals that replaced the tree’s organic matter. Had the trees not been quicky covered and oxygen eliminated, they would have decomposed like any other tree falling in the woods.

Different colors in the rock were created by other substances mixed with the ash and groundwater covering the trees. Iron oxide gives us red, brown and yellow shades, black is from carbon, green or blue from cobalt or copper, and pink or orange from manganese.

Interestingly, most of the logs retained their outer bark layers while the internal structures were replaced with silica and other compounds, thus producing a dramatic reveal of unexpected colors and patterns. In some logs, you can see the tree’s original grain and inner growth rings.

Stop 3: Stop at the Crystal Forest a few miles ahead. It’s a short ¾ mile hike through some of the most sparkly logs in the park. This area is unique in the park for its crystals embedded in the petrified wood. This stop is worth an hour to wander through.

Depending on your start time, this may be the last area you have time to explore today. If so, take time to soak in the full magnitude of this area and head back to nearby Holbrook for a casual dinner and an overnight stay at one of the local motels.

Day 2 Stop 1: The problem with splitting the park into two days is the doubling back situation it creates. Not a huge deal, but avoidable if you drive to the area the evening before and stay the night in Holbrook. This way you can get started bright and early in the morning and explore the park in one full day.

Begin day 2 by driving to the northernmost section of the park to experience a completely different area, the Painted Desert. This section has many stunningly colorful desert landscape overlooks. Plan to stop at them all. Your first stop should be to the Painted Desert Visitor Center, if it’s open. The Rangers were super helpful there.

Painted Desert formations are easily erodible siltstone, mudstone, and shale, mixed with heavy doses of iron oxide and manganese. This unexpected combination created the interesting nooks and crannies and classic oranges and reds color patterns found in this part of Arizona.

Throw into the mix some green, white, gray, black, and brown hues and you have what looks to be an actual painting.

If you can make your schedule work, check this out at sunrise or sunset when the colors are the most vibrant and unusual.

The unpaved Rim trail between Tawa Point and Kachina Point is about a mile round trip and gives you the opportunity for a close-up view of the desert away from the parking lot. Give yourself half an hour to stroll this trail and another couple of hours to stop and gaze at the colorful landscape at the 8 Painted Desert overlooks (Tiponi, Tawa, Kachina, Chinde, Pintado, Nizhoni, Whipple, Lacey).

Stop 2: After exploring the Painted Desert portion of the park, cross back over I40 and start heading south to explore what you didn’t finish yesterday.

The first site you’ll come upon is Puerco Pueblo which involves a short walk to the ruins of a 600 year old, 100 room pueblo with the opportunity to spot a few petroglyphs along the way. Its main selling point is the opportunity to learn how people survived and thrived in the harsh desert conditions of this area.

Stop 3: Newspaper Rock will be on the right side of the road from this direction. It’s a massive rock filled with 650+ petroglyphs that look like ancient graffiti, some over 2000 years old. I love petroglyphs so it was a fun quick stop (15 minutes).

Stop 4: Just down the road, also on the right side, you’ll come upon the Teepees - colorful mounds with a distinctive striping theme. The Teepees are part of the Blue Mesa section of the park, a mandatory stop on today’s visit.

The Teepees at Petrified Forest National Park

Pro tip: Blue Mesa Trail is a park highlight, perhaps THE park highlight. Leave enough time to fully explore this trail and the overlooks in this area.

You will need to drive from the main road to the start the 1 mile Blue Mesa Trail hike. It’s on the left past the Teepees.

This trail descends down into some quirky badlands of mostly blue bentonite clay. Even though it’s only a mile round trip, you are going to want to spend at least an hour in this area of the park. There are also a number of overlooks if you aren’t into a bit of downhill/uphill terrain.

Muted colors of the Blue Mesa trail section at the midpoint of Petrified Forest National Park

The Blue Mesa was created 200-225 million years ago from a unique combination of minerals, mudstone, sandstone, and water that collected here.

Walking along the base of these unique badlands with their stripes of blue, purple, gray, and green mudstones (and some sandstone thrown in) gives a different perspective of the landscape from an eye level view looking up. It feels like a different planet from the Painted Desert where you started your adventure this morning.

More stunning views along the Blue Mesa Trail

Stop 4: Moving further south in the park, you'll eventually reconnect with yesterday’s turnaround point. Before you do, you’ll enter an area of grayish colored mounds that looked to me like the moonscape from a sci-fi movie.

Mudstone creates a moonscape-like terrain in Petrified Forest National Park

This type of “badland” formation is found in dry climates with bursts of rainfall that wash away the surface and any plant life, creating the interesting gullies and textures you see here.

Wet mudstone, clay, and sandstone quickly dries, creating interesting cracks and hardened mud piles on which nothing grows, making it highly susceptible to erosion.

It’s also interesting that while the minerals, hardened volcanic ash, and stone are completely different in this area of the park versus a few miles further south, there are still plenty of petrified logs to be found. Notice the different colors in these logs, blending in with the environment in which they were born.

Petrified Wood in the middle of the park - the Blue Mesa Area - muted like its surroundings.

Continue your drive back to the southern entrance of the park (where you started yesterday), stopping anywhere along the way you didn’t have time for earlier or to revisit any stops you wish to soak in further.

Stop 5: After you exit the park, consider an optional side trip to Meteor Crater in Winslow. It’s an hour and 15 minute drive west (in the direction of Flagstaff). This is a fascinating site, also open from 8-5.

The site is a one mile wide, 550 foot deep, well-preserved crater from a giant meteor that impacted Earth over 50,000 years ago with a force 150 times greater than an atomic bomb. Tickets for adults can be purchased online for $20. Kids get a discounted rate.

This is a fun stop for those who love science or space with its indoor activities, three outdoor viewpoints, and a guided rim trail tour. Plan on a couple of hours for this stop.

Summary: I hope this information gives you some food for thought on what to see and do in northeastern Arizona. It’s the perfect stop for a quick weekend trip, if you’re headed east to New Mexico, or meandering north to any of Utah’s National Parks. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below. For more pictures of this area and information on other spots I’ve visited, check out @travelistaliz on Instagram.

A Collared Lizard, common in Petrified Forest National Park, wishing you Bon Voyage.