Holbrook Things to Do Tips by vtveen

Petrified Forest Nat. Park – Painted Desert Inn

A must see place along the park road is the Painted Desert Inn, nearby Kachina Point. This former road inn - dating back to 1920 - along Route 66 has been restored and is open for visitors.

Painted Desert Inn is situated on the rim overlooking the Painted Desert and was built of petrified wood and other native stone. After the restoration it fits exactly in its surroundings with red colored walls, which do have more or less the same color as the desert nearby.

We enjoyed walking around inside, which still gives a very good impression of the ‘old’ road inn. The dining room still has its original tables and beautifully carved chairs, the kitchen with the blue colored cabinets, the lunchroom, a tap room and the Trading Post Room with hand painted skylight panels. Enjoy the fresh colorful painted walls and the fantastic murals by Hopi artist Kabotie. It is just such a pity the inn doesn’t have any overnight accommodation. I would have loved staying in this place enjoying the views across the Painted Desert from the terrace.

Nowadays this beautiful historic building is ‘only’ a kind of museum, bookstore and small information center, but absolutely a must see sight.

Address: Petrified Forest National Park

Directions: The inn is located in the northern part of Petrified Forest NP, just a couple of miles from the north entrance and nearby Kachina Point.

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/historyculture/pdi.htm

Petrified Forest Nat. Park - Painted Desert

Painted Desert in the northern part of Petrified Forest National Park is part of a much bigger desert, which stretches from Interstate 40 in a northwest direction all the way to Lake Powell and Tuba City.

This landscape of badlands, hills, mesas and buttes is arid land, sparsely vegetated and heavily eroded. But we had never seen a desert with so many different colors. There are a lot of viewpoints along the park road; all very easy accessible. Some of them allow a view of Pilot Rock, the highest ‘mountain’ in the park. (It is said you even could see the San Francisco Mountain nearby Flagstaff.)

From one of these viewpoints (think it was Whippie Point) I made a short walk into the desert to make a better picture. There is a rim walk between Kachina Point and Tawa Point. It is also possible to do more real wilderness hiking; from Katchina Point - nearby the Painted Desert Inn - a trail leads further into the desert.

Painted Desert means a lot of colors, which are caused by minerals in the soil of the desert. The views of this stunning landscape are simply breathtaking. I highly recommend making at least a couple of stops at the viewpoints, with information boards explaining the geology and coloration.

Address: Petrified Forest National Park

Directions: Coming from the south entrance the viewpoints are on the left side of the parkroad the last couple of miles to the Painted Desert Visitor Centre (and the north entrance).

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

Petrified Forest Nat. Park – the Tepees

The Tepees area is another nice area in Petrified Forest National Park. These cone-shaped clay hills are named after the Indian ‘wigwams’ (although you must have some imagination) and do have remarkable banded colors.
These layers are caused by different kinds of minerals: the cap of the tepees is just clay, white layers are sandstone and reds are iron-stained siltstone.

All together an amazing sight in this arid landscape of eroding badlands. I have to admit that the colors are less saturated than I saw on many pics on the internet (most probably these have been ‘photoshopped’).

There are no real trails, but the tepees are located along the park road and from the car park we had excellent views.

Address: Petrified Forest National Park

Directions: 15 miles from the south entrance, between the entrance to Blue Mesa and Newspaper Rock, along the park road.

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

Petrified Forest NP – Blue Mesa

The Blue Mesa area is located more or less in the east central section of Petrified Nat. Park and is also the link between the areas with petrified wood and the Painted Desert.

Driving the three-mile loop road clockwise we still saw some petrified logs, obviously fallen down from one of the sculpted hills. From the viewing points on the other (northern) side of the road we had fantastic views of the stunning area of the Blue Mesa with its mudstone banded cone-shape hills coloring grey, blue and brown, coming from a variety of metal oxides. These badlands are almost a moon-like landscape (never been to the moon, but I can imagine it looks about the same).

It is possible to hike around through this stunning scenery along the Blue Mesa Trail, which starts at one of the view points, nearby the sun shelter. I already regret didn’t do this one-mile loop trail (it was too hot and we had already done some hiking).

Did read (at home) about the erosion in this part of Arizona, which can wash away three inches of this Blue Mesa clay in 10 years. So, if you want to sea this striking landscape, you will have to hurry !!

Address: Petrified Forest National Park

Directions: 13.5 miles from the south entrance of the park

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

Petrified Forest NP – Crystal Forest

Our second stop along the park road (just three miles from rainbow Forest Museum) was at the car park of Crystal Forest. This area is well-known for the huge number of petrified logs with exquisitely colors. Walking from the car park to the nearby Crystal Forest view point we already saw some examples with amethyst and quartz crystals.
The trail - 0.75 miles - winds through very arid landscape with scattered trees, chunks and small chips of petrified wood all around. In the late 19th century many logs in this area were dynamited by profit seekers searching quartz, and amethyst crystals. It is almost unbelievable, but petrified trees were reduced to the small chips you see scattered around the area and along the trail.

Sometimes it looks like the trees fell just a ‘couple of days ago’, on other spots we thought somebody had been sawing them in smaller pieces. But the logs break when the land around erodes and the cracks which divide most of the logs are due to stress on the log.
We came very close to the logs, making it possible to make pictures or to touch the crystallized wood.

During our walk we had not only an excellent view of the petrified logs, but also on the surrounding badlands. The trail has some more or less steep hills and be aware it can be very hot; always carry some water with you.

Address: Petrified Forest National Park

Directions: 5 miles north of the south entrance

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

Petrified Forest NP – Rainbow Forest

Rainbow Forest was our first stop along the park road and immediately after leaving the car we were ‘surrounded’ by pieces of petrified wood. But we started our visit in the Rainbow Forest Museum, which has exhibits about the history of the area, petrified wood and fossils. The museum is showing every half hour an orientation movie, ‘Timeless Impressions’. They also sell books, maps, postcards and other souvenirs.

We grabbed a leaflet about the Giant Logs Trail, which starts just outside the museum. It is a 0.4 mile more or less paved trail with some steps, which circles around the area and allowing visitors to get a very close view of the many specimens of petrified wood laying on the ground. We saw impressive whole trees, but also many smaller pieces; most of them brilliantly coloured varying from dark brown till vivid red.
We couldn’t resist leaving the trail to have a look from a cliff of a valley dotted with these amazing ‘rocks’. Of course we made a stop at the ‘Old Faithful’, the largest petrified log in the park with a length of about 35 feet and a weight of more than 40 tons.

Fondest memory
Walking along the trail a Belgian couple called us (in our own language) sowing a collared lizard, which was resting on a dark red petrified trunk. It was so absolutely magnificent this reptile more or less waiting to be photographed by us. A ‘meeting’ we will never forget and which will always remind us of Petrified Forest National Park (and Arizona).

Address: Petrified Forest National Park

Directions: 2 miles north of the south entrance

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/index.htm

Petrified Forest Nat. Park–incredible interesting

The landscape of Petrified Forest NP was 225 million (!!!) years ago a vast plain crossed by streams and covered with forests of conifer trees. Trees fell and were swept away into floodplains. Volcanic ash and mud buried the trees. The sediment cut off oxygen; silica-laden water seeped in the logs and they became petrified over millions of years.
Much much later erosion and wind wore away the rock layers and the gigantic petrified logs became exposed for visitors from all over the world.

Petrified Forest NP is located about 25 miles east of Holbrook and has two entrances. We started our exploration at the south Entrance Station, where we bought our ‘America the Beautiful Pass’. It is possible to pay with a credit card.
Be aware: at the turn off from Highway 180 into the park are two big shops selling petrified wood collected from private land; they call themselves ‘museum’, but in my opinion are just tourist traps.

Following the 28-mile park road we passed the three main areas of the park:
- Rainbow, Crystal and Jasper Forest with thousands of petrified logs.
- Blue Mesa area with still some logs but more and more colorful badlands and the cone-shaped formations of The Tepees.
- Painted Desert with indeed stunning colored landscape.

We made walks along the Giant Logs Trail and Crystal Forest Trail and stopped at several points enjoying the vistas of the Painted Desert. Rainbow Forest Museum and Painted Desert Visitor Centre do have a lot of information and friendly and helpful rangers. Painted Desert Inn nowadays is ‘just’ a bookshop and museum.

Opening hours: Petrified Forest NP is open all year round (except Christmas day)
Admission fee: Vehicles (and passengers) USD 10,- (for 7 days); America the Beautiful Pass costs USD 80,- (valid 12 months for all National Parks).
Warning: it is absolutely forbidden to collect or remove petrified wood or any natural, archeological of historical object from its setting.

Directions: East of Holbrook;
south entrance 19 miles along Highway 180
north entrance 24 miles along Interstate 40

Website: http://www.nps.gov/pefo/