Leslie and David's Wanderings: 21 October 2021 Petrified Forest NP

Sunday, October 24, 2021

21 October 2021 Petrified Forest NP

Etta seemed to be better this morning, so we decided to do a quick tour of Petrified Forest National Park in the afternoon. We drove to the south entrance of Petrified Forest NP and stopped in the visitor center. They had a limited set of exhibits open and of course the park store. We got our passport stamp, hat and post cards before heading out back of the visitor center for the trail through petrified wood. We strolled the trail and could not help but compare the petrified wood here with what we had seen in Utah. We stopped and got our picture in front of “Old Faithful” log where Albert Einstein had stood for a picture in 1931. It was interesting how the wood in logs sitting right next to each other could have such different colors from different types of minerals absorbed. We then drove the 29 mile park road to the north, stopping at the Crystal Forest to do the one mile long loop trail and the Jasper Forest overlook. The shear quantity of petrified wood was amazing. The one log we saw in Escalante-Grand Staircase NM was bigger than anything in this park, but the shear quantity of petrified wood all along the 29 mile road was amazing. The park had signs warning you not to take any samples and even had inspection stations and sensors at the park entrances to check that you did not. But they also had signs that said that theft of the petrified wood was not as significant as rumors indicated. There was plenty of petrified wood for sale inside and outside the park that came from surrounding private land including some very large pieces back in Holbrook. The northern section of the park road overlooks the Lithodendron Wash with dramatic landscape. Only about half the property within the national park boundaries, as designated by congress in 1971, is controlled by the park service. The rest is still in private hands. There is also a piece of the old Route 66 “Mother Road” within the northern portion of the park that is preserved.