Welcome to a place where the only trees in sight are petrified! We first visited Petrified Forest National Park in 2008. At the time we were in a hurry to reach another destination and unfortunately did not make the most of our visit. This time we made the most of our visit by walking most of the trails, learning more, and hopefully making better photographs. We hope you enjoy touring the park with us. 
Where is it?
Petrified Forest National Park is located between I-40 and Highway 180, near Holbrook, Arizona. Access the park’s website here.
What you should know before you go:
- Admission fees apply.
- The 28-mile-long park road is open from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, as are the Rainbow Forest and Painted Desert Visitor Centers.
- The Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark is open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.
- A park film can be viewed in either of the two visitor centers.
- There are parking areas, trails, and/or overlooks at all the main attractions in the park.
- Pets are allowed in the park as long as they are leashed. Horses are allowed in designated wilderness areas.
- A diner and convenience store with gasoline are located next to the Painted Desert Visitor Center. There are also several picnic areas with restrooms throughout the park.
- There are no campgrounds in the park. However, backcountry camping is allowed in designated wilderness areas of park, and a permit is required.
- Park sponsored demonstrations, guided activities, and workshops take place throughout the year.
Rainbow Forest Museum
Our first stop was at the Rainbow Forest Museum and visitor center where we learned about the prehistoric history of the park. Once part of the super continent called Pangea about 220 million years ago, what is now Petrified Forest National Park was about 10 degrees north of the equator. 
As a rainforest surrounded by rivers and swamplands, its inhabitants included intriguing pre-dinosaur age animals that roamed or swam in the area.
Displays in the museum featured several interesting animals including the placerias hesternus. According to museum information: Placerias hesternus (plu-SAYR-ee-us hess- TERN-us) was a dicynodont therapsid. Therapsids were large “reptiles” that possessed many mammalian characteristics including a “cheek” bone, enlarged canine teeth, and a specialized attachment of the skull to the spine. This massive plant-eater was up to 9 feet (2.7 m) long and might have weighed as much as two tons.
Interestingly, a large number of placerias hesternus fossils were found in a quarry in St. Johns, Arizona, a town southeast of the park.
Giant Logs Trail
Giant Logs Trail located behind the Rainbow Forest Visitor Center lives up to its name. Below are a few photos of the colorful petrified tree trunks along the trail. 
Crystal Forest
Believe it or not, the logs in Crystal Forest had become crystalline quartz before T. rex arrived 135 million years later!
According to the park, this area was once on the edge of a river channel. Flooding over time caused the trees to become buried under silt which preserved them. Gradually the volcanic silica in the groundwater replaced the molecules in the wood and created a replica of the tree or log in quartz.
Blue Mesa
The Blue Mesa area of the park was probably the most intriguing to us because of the incredible geology. We didn’t caption the photos below because words really can’t describe the beauty of the place. 
According to the park: The colorful bands of the Chinle Formation represent ancient soil horizons. While the red, blue, and green layers generally contain the same amount of iron and manganese, differences in color depend on the position of the groundwater table when the ancient soils were formed. In soils where the water table was high, a reducing environment existed due to a lack of oxygen in the sediments, giving the iron minerals in the soil a greenish or bluish hue, such as at Blue Mesa. The pink and reddish layers were formed where the water table fluctuated, allowing the iron mineral to oxidize (rust).
The Tepees
Blue Mesa isn’t the only area of the park with breathtaking terrain. Introducing the Tepees.
According to the park: The Tepees are located in the middle of the park, but expose one of the lowest, thus oldest, rock members within the park and the Painted Desert.
Newspaper Rock
Newspaper Rock is not just one rock. Throughout the area are many rocks with petroglyphs and other writings. Visitors view the rocks through telescopes/binoculars at the viewpoint – or in our case by zooming in with the camera. Most of the rock below is covered with petroglyphs that are thought to date back 600 – 2,000 years.
Puerco Pueblo
Petrified Forest National Park protects the ruins of a village that was once a 100-room pueblo and home to about 200 people. Puerco Pueblo’s residents were farmers who grew beans, corn, and squash while utilizing the nearby Puerco River for irrigation. Scientists believe the site was abandoned by 1380 due to climate change and severe drought conditions.
Painted Desert
Named by Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, the Painted Desert actually stretches about 150 miles from the eastern side of the Grand Canyon southeast to Petrified Forest National Park. Visitors traveling the portion of Historic Route 66 through Petrified Forest can see even more of the park’s breathtaking landscapes from several viewpoints along the way. Gorgeous desert vistas can also be seen from the Painted Desert Visitor Center.
While we have barely scratched the surface of Petrified Forest National Park, we hope we have inspired some wanderlust. This is one of those parks that cannot be justified by photographs and words; it needs to be seen in person to be appreciated for its beauty and historic importance. We thank you so much for joining us on our road trip! 
Need more national park inspiration? Try these other great parks:
- 10 Amazing Things to See and Do at Big Bend National Park
- Rocky Mountain National Park
- Gateway Arch National Park
Happy, safe travels, y’all!
Mike and Kellye
As always, we strive to be as accurate with our information as possible. If we made a mistake, it was unintentional. (Hey, we’re only human!) Our suggestions are for places that we’ve heard good things about but haven’t visited personally, and our opinions are our own.
©2023
Once again exceptionally impressive photos. 🙂
Thank you, Fred. We appreciate your support!
Startling landscape! I did indeed enjoy the tour.
Thanks so much, Geoff!
I really enjoyed reading this post as it brought back fond memories of our own visit to the Petrified Forest NP quite a few years ago.
Thank you, Marion! It’s such an interesting park.
Wow, this place is so stunning! Thank you for sharing, guys! Maybe someday I’ll be there.
It really looks otherworldly! So cool!
Thank you, Lyssy! It’s a super cool park.
Thanks, Lyssy. It’s definitely different.
It’s fascinating to see petrified trees in this part of the country, as the trees we have here are very much alive and well, haha! To also learn about the Earth’s history millions of years ago and the species back then really goes to show just how far the planet’s come!
Thanks, Rebecca. It’s hard to realize how old the earth is when you hear about these trees and animals.
Thank you for the tour. It does look absolutely amazing. I hope to see it with my own eyes someday! Your photos are awesome and do make me want to visit.
Thank you, Betty. I hope you get to visit. It can be done in a day or less.
Gorgeous! It’s going on our list of places to visit for sure!
Thank you! You won’t be disappointed.
We thought about visiting the Petrified Forest when we were in the area. The logs would be really interesting to see and I love the colours in the landscape, especially the teepees. Maggie
Thank you, Maggie! I hope you get back that way so you can visit. It’s a great park.
This is one of the most interesting park I have visited and you did a great job of taking us on this tour!
Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for this post! Not only was it informative, fascinating and full of great images of the sort of wild desert landscapes I love, it also filled in a few missing details about the old slides I have from our (also too brief) visit. For instance I’m sure I have one of the Painted Desert Inn but didn’t recall its name!
Thanks Sarah! I’m kind of ashamed that we didn’t delve into this park deeper the first time we visited, but I feel fortunate to have gotten to see it again.
Kellye, I can’t even tell how many times, while reading this post, I pestered Michaela, read her a sentence or two, showed her yet another photograph, etc etc. What an amazing place, we would be absolutely thrilled to visit this Park and see what you’ve seen here. Wonderful – pretty unique- scenery and histories which are beyond fascinating. Great post.
Aw, thank you so much. It is an amazing park and can be visited in a day or less. I hope you get to go one day.
Me too!
Some of your photos, especially the first one, remind me of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. It’s so interesting how two places so far apart can look so similar. This looks like a very cool place to visit!
Thanks, Donna! It reminds me of Badlands too, which is the remnants of an ancient sea. What’s interesting about Petrified Forest is that these formations are just in a small area of the park.
What amazing photos Kellye, the lines and colours of the rocks are stunning. Looks like a moonscape.
Thank you Alison. It’s a very interesting park.
How fascinating to see an area like this. It shows just how old the world is. I agree with runningtotravel’s comments. I was reminded of South Dakota’s Badlands as well. Happy Thursday Kellye. Allan
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the 200 million years ago thing.
Wow. This is fascinating.
Thank you, Brenda!
Thanks for sharing photos and wonderful landscape. Anita
Thank you, Anita!
A friend of mine visited the Petrified Forest and brought me a piece of petrified wood. It’s fascinating to realize that wood can be transformed into quartz. Great post! Thanks for sharing!
How nice of your friend. We didn’t buy any, but we should have. Thanks for much for checking out the post and for your nice comment!
Wow, so much interesting history within this place! That artist rendering looks like a beast created by a kid, but the creature supposedly did exist.
Yes, those animals were interesting. Our grandkids would have loved visiting there. Thank you for checking out the post!!
This is such an interesting place! It’s amazing to think that all those animals on display in the museum once lived in this area. The petrified tree trunks are incredible – it almost look like (colourful) rocks. And to see petroglyphs are always a highlight for me. A lovely tour, thanks for great photos!
It’s so wild to think that this beautiful desert was once a lush prehistoric rainforest! I just love those layers of geological wonder through the park and to think of all the history that occurred in each layer. Great post about your day in the park 🙂
Thank you, Meg. We would love to take our grandkids there, but it’s awfully far for them to travel.
long road trips are so much harder as a kid when your attention span is so short 🙂
That’s the truth!
What a great tour!! Enjoyed it!
Such beautiful sites Kellye! I love the color in the petrified wood, I actually have a piece my dad gave to me.
Thank you, Diane. It is a wonderful park in an amazing state.
We were to this park many years ago. It was so colorful and interesting! While on the logs trail, we happened upon a lizard, who suddenly ‘dropped’ his tail and ran away! It was the first time ever experiencing such a thing for us.
Great memory! Thanks so much for stopping by, Rose!
The landscape looks otherworldly and so colourful. Glad you were able to return to appreciate it more fully. Your pictures are stunning.
Thanks so much!
Beautiful. Some of it reminds me of the South Dakota Badlands.
Thanks so much for checking out the post, Ray!
Anytime! My fiancee and I will hopefully do all the site trotting you guys do when things settle down and life changes up some.
Such brilliant colors in the Petrified Forest. Glad you took the time to take the time. It is a fascinating place. Nice photos
Thank you, Donna!
You are welcome
You certainly have inspired some wanderlust with this marvellous post. What an incredible and curious place! I loved the museum exhibition portraying the zoological history of the area. The Blue Mesa colours are unbelievable and remind me of the Rainbow mountains in China which I sadly did not get to visit.
Hi Leighton! So glad to hear from you, my friend. I hope everything is going well for you and Sladja. Thanks so much for checking out the post and for your lovely comment. This is definitely an interesting park.
I love adobe houses. Once again lovely scenery and you captured it well!
Thank you, Sharon!