National Park 3/59
Petrified Forest | 3.15.17 | Arizona | Coordinates 34.9100° N, -109.8068° W
Petrified Forest National Park transports you onto another planet. The trees literally transformed into rocks. The only thing familiar about the park is NPS entry sign.
After you pay the entrance fee and start driving you'll feel like you're on Mars. Make sure you stop at the visitors center and get a map. Immediately behind the visitors center is a small loop that holds the largest piece of petrified wood in the entire park! (woah.) Some of the logs are 218 million years old- absolutely insane. The loop only takes about 10-15 minutes.
There is only one road that in the park and it will take you from the entrance back to the highway. Everything to see in the park is off of this road. There are many small trail loops that are off the trail- some take 5 minutes to do and others 25 minutes. All these paths are paved its an extremely accessible park which is awesome. If you want to get off the main paths there are a couple places that use gps and are a couple miles long.
It's a 2 mile hike from the visitors center to the Agate house (seen above). The Agate house is an 8 room pueblo made entirely from Petrified Wood. The NPS estimates that it was used in 1050-1300!
On your way back from the Agate house take the long logs trail- there's amazing views and it's a pleasant walk. You can see the pictures from the trail below.
Overall Petrified is a funky park with amazing views. It's easy to tackle the park in one day- Even half a day if you're pressed for time. Make sure you stop in at the Visitors center they'll tell you everything you need to see in the park.