Nature's painted canvas: Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert, Arizona

200 million year old fossils buried amidst scenic badlands
A paleontologist's dream, an artist's muse
Science and art come together on this visit to the Petrified Forest National Park.

The painted desert

While thousands of visitors flock to Arizona each year attracted to the spectacular beauty of the world's most famous natural wonder, the Grand Canyon, few people have ever heard of its lesser known, equally attractive cousin, the Petrified Forest National Park. I must admit, my own discovery of this park was entirely accidental. Driving along the interstate-40 in Arizona, I stumbled upon a series of brown billboards announcing the park. Unable to resist the lure of a new place unexplored, I exited the highway and drove on straight into the park.

The park really is two parks in one. On the northern end of the park lies the Painted Desert and on the southern end is the Rainbow Forest. Petrified Forest National Park derives its name from the rich collection of petrified wood that is found scattered within both of these parks. The word petrified literally means "to turn into stone". A lush green forest that once stood in this exact spot millions of years ago has been converted over the years by geologic processes into an arid desert land and the wood that once formed the forest now lies scattered beneath the earth converted into stone and rock pieces of quartz crystals. Other than this rich petrified wood collection, the park also boasts of a plant and animal fossil collection dating back to over 250 million years ago (the triassic period as it is geologically known). Fossilized bones of a tyrannosaurus named "Gertie" have been discovered in recent years within the park. Move over Jurassic park...the new triassic park is here!

On first impressions, the idea of driving through the park looking at slabs of wood does not sound terribly inviting. But I'm willing to give it a try. And so I stop by the Visitor Center, pick up a map guide to the park and decide to venture the 27-mile scenic drive through the park. Within a mere ten minutes of my drive along the scenic route through the north end of the park, any apprehensions I may have had disappeared and I was instead left astounded by the most stunning views of the Painted Desert. For as far as my eyes could travel into the horizon, the landscape before me converted into an artist's masterpiece. There are several viewpoints along the drive, each offering a different perspective, a slightly different view of the endless desert that lies before me. For miles on end, the desert stretches before me, a fine painting stroked with an artist's paintbrush, dipped in hues of blue, pink and yellow. Stopping by the various overlooks and scenic viewpoints along the drive, I flip through the artistic portfolio before me, admiring the tall teepees, the conical hills, the multi-layered formations, the vast badlands, gazing at the wonderful sceneries in front of me.

The teepees

While the northern end of the park reveals the desert's painted beauty, the southern part of the park offers the opportunity to immerse oneself into that beauty - to get up and close with nature by hiking down the trails into the badlands. I decide on hiking down the Blue Mesa trail, a moderately steep one mile trail that meanders through the blue hills and badlands of the Painted Desert. The gray bentonite of the hills mixes with the lavender petrified wood to paint the surroundings a deep blue hue. It is no wonder then that the famous naturalist John Muir once called this "the blue forest". Walking down the trail allows you to get a closer look at the multicolored layers of history trapped by time into striated mounds, buttes and cones. Different minerals within these layers and the different time periods of sedimentary deposition add different hues to the already rich palette of colors of the badlands.

The blue forest

Hiking along the Blue Mesa trail

At several points along the trail, large logs of petrified wood are left intact on the ground, allowing hikers to get a closer log at the ancient forest that once existed on this spot. Be sure to take a look at the brilliant colors gleaming off the surface of the petrified wood, but leave all fossils and petrified wood where you find them. The fossils and wood are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that geologists and paleontologists are still trying to put together. Every little piece of rubble along the trail is part of history that scientists are in the process of unraveling. Removal of these pieces is prohibited by law. And besides, you wouldn't want to pick this trail dry and leave it unmemorable for other hikers, would you? You'll have plenty of opportunity to buy souvenirs both at the Visitor Center in the park and in shops outside the park.

Logs of petrified wood along the trail

I hike back up the trail, stop by the scenic viewpoint to take a final look at the trail I followed, and continue my drive through the park. The Puerco Pueblo along the drive provides yet another stop-over. A short walk through the ruins of a hundred year old pueblo offers a glimpse into an added anthropological dimension to the park. Petroglyphs drawn into the stone by the Anasazi people that once lived here can be seen hidden strategically amidst the ruins.

The Puerco pueblo ruins

Petroglyphs

On my way driving out of the park, I make a final stop at the Agate House. This small Pueblo sits on top of a small hill within the Rainbow Forest. Anthropologists believe that it was occupied more than seven hundred years ago. Anyone who has even ventured through the many ancient ruins scattered across the American southwest can vouch for just how fascinating ruins can be. This one in particular interests me because of its architecture - for one thing, it lacks the traditional kiva that has been the hallmark feature of all other ruins I've visited in the area. And for another, this pueblo is built entirely out of the blocks of the petrified wood that lie scattered throughout the park.

People visit the Petrified Forest National Forest for different reasons. The paleontologists come here, fascinated by fossils that lie hidded within its many layers. Geologists are drawn to the minerals that create the brilliant palette of colors. Anthropologists come in search for answers to the human life that once existed here. Photographers come here in search of their elusive muse. Regardless of what brings you to the Petrified Forest, in the end, everyone who ventures here leaves inspired by the beauty of this nature's painted canvas.

~vagabond~ © 2008