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A collection of travel and adventure stories
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Description:
Petrified Forest National Park is located in Arizona, and is a very vast desert area containing a large collection of acient petrified wood, colorful badlands, and anciet ruins.
Activities:
sightseeing, hiking, history
Directions:
Located in northeastern Arizona, Petrified Forest National Park is about 3.5 hours driving time from either Phoenix, Arizona or Albuquerque, New Mexico. From Phoenix, you have several choices. Travel Interstates 17 North and 40 East, passing through Flagstaff (259 miles) or travel Highway 87 North to Payson, Highway 260 East to Heber, Highway 377 North to Holbrook, and Highway 180 South to the park (215 miles). From Albuquerque, travel 204 miles west on Interstate 40 to Exit 311.
Story Date 4/12/2005
Publish Date 12/27/2005
According to Mikala: Petrified Forest National Park is one of those places that makes me realize how incredible, strange and vast the Earth is. During this visit, I saw some awesome views and sights. Each place makes me wonder at the history and creation of the landscape.
The park is very large at over 90,000 acres. Needless to say, we only visited a portion of the lower section during this stop. Since it was April, the weather was perfect...not too hot. We started by walking a short loop called the Giant Logs trail, which is an easy 0.4 mile paved trail. All along this trail are concentrations of petrified wood. It is hard to imagine that the area was once covered with tall pine trees about 225 million years ago. The wood petrified when the area was flooded; and time, wind and water wore away the layers of hardened sediments in the wood.
We continued our drive into the park. At Jasper Forest lookout, we could see the valley below full of pieces of petrified forest. According to the literature, the area had much more wood before tourists began taking vast quantities for sale. Continuing along the drive, the view is absolutely amazing. I could see for miles along the badlands and the desert. The hills are very interesting...providing layers of blues, purples and grays. Near a place called The Tepees, there are many of these multi-colored cone shaped formations.
This is a great park to visit, allowing you to enjoy the solitude and enormity of the desert.
Please click on a picture for a larger image.
Some petrified wood along Giant Logs loop.
Giant Logs loop trail.
Interesting colors.
From the lookout at Jasper Forest.
Petrified logs strewn in the valley below.
Very interesting landscape.
View of badlands at Blue Mesa.
More painted desert.
Coned shaped hills near The Tepees.
A trail winding through the hills.
The colors are so fascinating.
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