Best Things to do at Petrified Forest National Park

At first glance, Petrified Forest National Park can seem like a place you simply drive through, stop to see a few ancient logs, and continue on your way. That would be a mistake.

Spread across more than 220,000 acres of northeastern Arizona, Petrified Forest protects one of the world's great Late Triassic fossil landscapes — along with colorful badlands, sweeping grasslands, ancestral Puebloan sites, petroglyphs, wildlife, wilderness, and even a piece of historic Route 66.

The petrified trees scattered across the landscape lived more than 200 million years ago, when this part of Arizona looked nothing like the high desert you see today. Ancient river systems carried fallen trees into floodplains, where they were buried and eventually transformed into the brilliantly colored stone that gives the park its name.

Hi, I'm Rob Decker. I've spent more than 50 years exploring and photographing America's national parks, and Petrified Forest is one of those places that rewards anyone willing to slow down and look beyond the obvious. My photographs from the park reveal a landscape filled with color, texture, geology, wildlife, and layers of history stretching back millions of years.

1. Start at the Rainbow Forest Museum

If you're entering Petrified Forest National Park from the south, the Rainbow Forest Museum is an excellent place to begin. The museum introduces visitors to the Late Triassic world and explains how petrified wood formed, what the landscape looked like millions of years ago, and what kinds of animals once lived here.

Fossils are an essential part of the Petrified Forest story. The park preserves one of North America's most important records of Late Triassic life, including fossil plants and ancient reptiles that lived long before the modern Arizona desert existed.

The museum is also conveniently located next to one of the park's best short walks: the Giant Logs Trail.

2. Walk Among the Giant Logs

The Giant Logs Trail is only about 0.4 mile, but it provides one of the quickest introductions to the extraordinary petrified wood found throughout the southern portion of the park.

Some of the park's largest and most colorful petrified logs can be seen here, including a massive specimen known as Old Faithful. Up close, the colors are remarkable — reds, yellows, purples, oranges, blacks, whites, and crystalline surfaces created by minerals that replaced the original organic material over immense spans of geologic time.

3. Explore Crystal Forest

For an even closer look at petrified wood, continue to the Crystal Forest Trail. This easy loop winds through an area where colorful fragments and enormous fossilized logs are scattered across the high-desert landscape.

The trail is less than a mile, making it one of the best short hikes in Petrified Forest National Park for visitors who want maximum scenery without committing to a long hike.

Look closely at the exposed ends of the logs. Some contain sparkling quartz crystals, while others display rich bands of color created by trace minerals. It's easy to understand why early visitors were fascinated by this landscape — and why protecting these resources became so important.

4. Hike the Blue Mesa Trail

If you only have time for one trail beyond the petrified wood areas, make it Blue Mesa.

The Blue Mesa Trail descends into one of the park's most surreal landscapes, where rounded badland hills are striped with bands of blue, lavender, gray, white, pink, and red. The colors change constantly depending on the weather and angle of the light.

The roughly one-mile loop drops from the mesa rim into the badlands before climbing back to the parking area. Give yourself time here. Blue Mesa is particularly rewarding for photographers because the shapes, shadows, textures, and colors create completely different compositions as you move through the landscape.

Travelers looking for a longer and less-traveled experience can also explore the Blue Forest route, one of the park's off-the-beaten-path hiking opportunities.

5. Discover the Painted Desert

The northern section of Petrified Forest opens into the Painted Desert, a broad expanse of layered badlands stretching toward the horizon in shades of red, orange, lavender, gray, and pink.

Several overlooks along the park road make it easy to stop and experience the changing landscape. Early and late light often reveal the richest colors, while passing clouds create enormous moving shadows across the desert.

The Painted Desert also demonstrates why Petrified Forest is about far more than petrified wood. The park protects an enormous high-desert ecosystem of grasslands, badlands, mesas, washes, and wilderness that supports a surprising variety of plants and wildlife.

6. Walk to Agate House

Petrified Forest's story doesn't begin and end with geology. People have lived, traveled, hunted, farmed, and traded in this region for more than 13,000 years.

Agate House provides one of the park's most memorable connections to that human history. The partially reconstructed ancestral Puebloan structure was built using pieces of petrified wood and was occupied around A.D. 1100–1150.

The trail to Agate House begins near the Rainbow Forest Museum and can be combined with the Long Logs area for a longer walk. As with all archeological sites in the park, the structure is fragile. Visitors should never climb, sit, or lean on the walls.

Elsewhere in the park, sites such as Puerco Pueblo and Newspaper Rock reveal additional chapters of human history, including ancestral Puebloan architecture and hundreds of petroglyphs.

7. Look for Wildlife — Including Some Remarkable Lizards

A landscape this dry can look empty until you begin paying attention.

Petrified Forest supports hundreds of plant and animal species, including pronghorn, mule deer, coyotes, ravens, raptors, snakes, and numerous reptiles. One of my favorite subjects to photograph here is the colorful collared lizard.

Collared lizards can actually run on their hind legs for short bursts, giving them an almost miniature-dinosaur appearance as they race across the desert.

You might also encounter a greater short-horned lizard, sometimes casually called a "horned toad." Despite the nickname, it's a reptile rather than an amphibian, with a broad, flattened body designed to blend remarkably well into the desert terrain.

Love national park wildlife? Read more about lizards you can see in America's national parks.

8. See Where Historic Route 66 Crossed the Park

Petrified Forest National Park protects another very different piece of American history: a section of historic Route 66.

The highway itself no longer carries traffic through the park, but a line of weathered telephone poles still traces the old roadbed across the desert. A rusting 1930s Studebaker marks the historic alignment and has become one of Petrified Forest's most recognizable roadside photo stops.

For generations of travelers heading west toward California, Route 66 represented opportunity, mobility, and adventure. Seeing its remnants surrounded by a landscape millions of years older creates one of those wonderful juxtapositions that makes Petrified Forest so interesting.

9. Go Beyond the Road Into the Petrified Forest Wilderness

Most visitors experience Petrified Forest along the 28-mile park road and its developed trails. But more adventurous hikers can leave the busiest areas behind and explore a much wilder side of the park.

More than 50,000 acres are designated wilderness. Backcountry routes lead into badlands, grasslands, mesas, washes, and areas rarely seen by the average visitor.

Unlike a typical maintained hiking trail, these routes can require navigation and route-finding skills. Carry a map, adequate water, sun protection, and clothing for rapidly changing weather. Cell service should never be relied upon as your primary navigation or emergency plan.

Overnight wilderness camping requires a permit, and there are no developed campgrounds within Petrified Forest National Park.

How Much Time Do You Need at Petrified Forest National Park?

You can drive through Petrified Forest and make several stops in half a day, but I recommend allowing a full day if your schedule permits.

That gives you enough time to walk Giant Logs or Crystal Forest, hike Blue Mesa, explore the Painted Desert, stop at cultural sites, see the Route 66 alignment, visit the museum, and — most importantly — avoid turning the experience into a race from overlook to overlook.

Frequently Asked Questions About Petrified Forest National Park

Can you take petrified wood from Petrified Forest National Park?

No. Removing petrified wood, fossils, rocks, plants, archeological artifacts, or other natural and cultural resources from the national park is prohibited. Leave everything where you find it so future visitors can experience the same landscape.

What is the best hike in Petrified Forest National Park?

Blue Mesa is one of the best overall hikes because it puts you directly inside the park's brilliantly colored badlands. For petrified wood, Giant Logs and Crystal Forest are excellent short trails.

How long does it take to drive through Petrified Forest?

The main park road is about 28 miles long, but the drive should not be treated simply as transportation. With overlooks, museums, archeological sites, Route 66, and short hikes along the way, plan at least several hours — and preferably a full day.

Can you camp inside Petrified Forest National Park?

There are no developed campgrounds in the park. Wilderness backpacking is allowed with a permit for visitors prepared to hike into designated backcountry areas.

What is Petrified Forest National Park best known for?

The park is best known for its extraordinary concentrations of colorful petrified wood and its Late Triassic fossil record, but it also protects the Painted Desert, badlands, grasslands, archeological sites, petroglyphs, wilderness, wildlife, and a historic section of Route 66.

A National Park That Rewards a Closer Look

Petrified Forest is easy to underestimate. That's part of what makes it so rewarding.

Walk past a petrified tree that fell more than 200 million years ago. Descend into the blue and lavender badlands of Blue Mesa. Search the rocks for a collared lizard warming itself in the sun. Stand beside an ancestral Puebloan structure. Follow a line of telephone poles marking the path of Route 66 across the desert.

Very few national parks allow you to travel through so many different chapters of American natural and human history in a single day.

Take your time. Get out of the car. Walk the trails. Look closely.

Petrified Forest has far more stories to tell than its name suggests.