Category: Petrified Forest National Park

the painted desert rim trail at petrified forest national park

wanderessence1025 November 25, 2018

The Painted Desert Rim Trail at Petrified Forest National Park is a one-mile round trip (1.6km) walk between Tawa Point and Painted Desert Inn. From the rim, there are excellent views of the multi-hued Painted Desert below.

Beginning at Tawa Point

I walked a half-mile through pinyon-juniper scrubland atop volcanic rock.

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert Rim Trail

The Painted Desert Inn is a trading post-turned-inn-turned-museum. At the end of the half-mile trail, I stopped inside where a ranger told me all about the history of the place. He pointed out the murals, the rounded corners, and the decorative ceiling.

The original building from the early 1920s was made of petrified wood. Today’s adobe facade dates to the 1930s renovation in the Pueblo Revival Style. This National Historic Landmark is now a museum with exhibits on the park’s recent human history and architecture.

Painted Desert Inn

Bar area in Painted Desert Inn

The murals at the Painted Desert Inn depict symbols, stories and ceremonies of the Hopi and their ancestral Pueblan people who lived in this region.

Mural at Painted Desert Inn

The Salt Lake Mural tells the story of two Hopi men on a salt gathering journey who walked a 230-mile trip from their home in the Zuni mesas and back, passing through what is now Petrified Forest National Park. It was both a physical and coming-of-age journey.

Mural at Painted Desert Inn

Ceiling at Painted Desert Inn

Painted Desert Inn

I walked out to Kachina Point near the Inn for more views of the Painted Desert.

view from Kachina Point

Then I walked back the way I came, along the Painted Desert Rim Trail, to Tawa Point. Here, I hopped in my car and left Petrified Forest National Park by 1:15. My next destination was the Hubbell Trading Post.

Painted Desert Rim Trail

Painted Desert Rim Trail

Painted Desert Rim Trail

Painted Desert Rim Trail

As this was my second day in the park, I got another cancellation stamp. 🙂

Petrified Forest National Park stamp for today

*Tuesday, May 15, 2018*

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On Sundays, I post about hikes or walks that I have taken in my travels; I may also post on other unrelated subjects. I will use these posts to participate in Jo’s Monday Walks or any other challenges that catch my fancy.

the blue mesa trail at petrified forest national park

wanderessence1025 November 18, 2018

The Blue Mesa Trail at Petrified Forest National Park is a 1 mile (1.6km) loop on a steep path that winds through vibrant blue, purple and gray badlands dotted with colorful petrified wood.

The Blue Mesa Trail

Badlands are a dry terrain where softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils have been eroded extensively by wind and water. They are characterized by steep slopes and minimal vegetation; they commonly include canyons, ravines, gullies, buttes, mesas and hoodoos. They are often difficult to navigate by foot.

Luckily there is a paved walkway here that makes it easy to explore.

The Blue Mesa Trail

bands of blue, gray and purple

The Blue Mesa Trail

The Blue Mesa Trail

The striped slopes have a subdued palette.

blue bands

close-up of sediment

Blue Mesa Trail

From the higher elevations, I find great views of the surrounding area of Billing’s Gap and various washes.

view from top of Blue Mesa Trail to the surrounding area

Blue Mesa Trail

view from top of Blue Mesa Trail to the surrounding area

view from top of Blue Mesa Trail to the surrounding area

view from top of Blue Mesa Trail to the surrounding area

*Tuesday, May 15, 2018*

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This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walk: The Last Lap.

the crystal forest trail at petrified forest national park

wanderessence1025 November 11, 2018

I returned to Petrified Forest National Park for a second day on Tuesday, May 15. Leaving Holbrook, where I’d spent the night, I passed the sign: Holbrook: Home of the Hashknife Pony Express. Hashknife Pony Express riders have used relays of horses to deliver mail from Holbrook to Scottsdale since 1958, reenacting the Pony Express riders of years past, according to the Navajo-Hopi Observer. The name Hashknife was the name given to a cattle ranch of Aztec Land and Cattle Company. Located around Holbrook and Winslow, it had “60,000 head of cattle and an uncivilized reputation.”

I drove past Northland Pioneer College and the Little Colorado River while Kid Rock sang “All Summer Long” from my playlist. It was not quite summer yet, so the temperature was perfect to be in a desert landscape: 74F degrees and breezy.

Petrified Forest Gift Shop

Petrified Forest National Park

The Crystal Forest Trail at Petrified Forest National Park is only a 0.75 mile (1.2km) loop through a badlands landscape with a scatter of petrified wood. By the time I’d finished walking the loop, I’d done nearly a mile, with all my detours and side explorations.

a scatter of petrified logs

Though it looks like the wood is neatly cut by a wood-chopper, it was actually broken by layers of dirt stacked to make hills. The weight of the dirt crushed the logs, breaking the petrified wood neatly. Silica naturally breaks at a clean angle, much like a dropped piece of chalk.

Crystal Forest

Crystal Forest

Crystal Forest

petrified log

petrified log

Crystal Forest

Crystal Forest

A variety of minerals created the rainbow effect in many pieces of petrified wood.

petrified log

petrified log

Crystal Forest

petrified logs

Crystal Forest

Crystal Forest

Crystal Forest

Since people were looting the petrified wood to use or sell in the late 1800s, the landscape was being threatened. In 1895, the Arizona Territorial legislature petitioned Congress to protect this valuable scientific and cultural treasure. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation creating Petrified Forest National Monument. The monument became a national park in 1962.

*Tuesday, May 15, 2018*

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This post is in response to Jo’s ‘Not a Monday Walk’.

the giant logs trail at petrified forest national park

wanderessence1025 November 4, 2018

Petrified Forest National Park no longer has the types of forests we normally envision. Back in the day, and I mean during the Triassic Period some 225 million years ago, this part of Arizona was a tropical landscape with abundant vegetation – ferns, horsetails and cycads. Dinosaurs and reptiles roamed under the shade of 180-foot conifers, and fish, clams, snails and crayfish swished their way through rivers.

Over a period of 200 million years, continents moved, regions uplifted, climate changed, and the river system was buried by sediment layers. Today, what we find at Petrified Forest National Park are badlands and painted desert, petrified wood, plant and animal fossils, archeological sites, and artifacts from prehistoric people who once lived here.

I entered the park through the north entrance late on Monday afternoon; I had meant to get an earlier start but had been waylaid by the remnants of Route 66 on my way across Arizona from Flagstaff. I drove 28 miles to the south entrance, stopping briefly at various scenic overlooks, and walked the Giant Logs Trail at the southern Visitor Center. This is only a 0.3 mile self-guided loop through a bunch of colorful petrified wood, but I took a few detours, making the walk longer.

Giant Logs

When the trees originally died some 216 million years ago, they fell into a river and were buried beneath layers of silt, mud, sand, and volcanic ash; these layers protected them from decay. Ground water saturated with minerals percolated through the layers, carrying silica from the volcanic ash. The absorbent dead wood soaked up these minerals; the silica, or quartz, crystals bonded with the cells of the tree replicating the organic material in perfect detail. Eventually, silica replaced the wood material.

This petrified forest is no longer made of wood, but of stone.

Giant Logs

The trail leads through an ancient river bed, once surrounded by dense forest similar to the Amazon Rain Forest. All that’s left of the river today is the deposited sandstone. The trees fell into the river, becoming petrified log jams where the dead trees congregated, were buried, and petrified. This trial leads among log jams that have eroded to the present surface.

Giant Logs

cactus

Giant Logs

cactus

Giant Logs

A variety of minerals created the rainbow effect in many pieces of petrified wood.

Giant Logs

Giant Logs

Old Faithful is a giant log previously called such names as “The Monarch” and “Major Domo.” It measures 35-feet (10.6 meters) long and weighs about 44 tons.

Old Faithful

A favorite visitor attraction, it was named Old Faithful in the 1920s, as it was seen as being what Old Faithful geyser is to Yellowstone National Park.

Old Faithful

Many of the logs bear trace fossils that record the movements of prehistoric animals: footprints, tracks, burrows, borings and feces.

Giant Logs

Though it looks like the wood is neatly cut by a woodchopper, it was actually broken by layers of dirt stacked to make hills. The weight of the dirt crushed the logs, breaking the petrified wood neatly. Silica naturally breaks at a clean angle, much like a dropped piece of chalk.

Giant Logs

Giant Logs

Giant Logs

Nearly a dozen types of petrified wood have been formally identified at Petrified Forest, showing it was once a diverse healthy ecosystem.

Giant Logs

Here are some of the fossils displayed in the Rainbow Forest Museum & Visitor Center.

fossils in the Rainbow Forest Museum & Visitor Center

I got my sticker and stamp at the northern Visitor Center on Monday, and I returned the next day for some longer walks in the park.

Petrified Forest National Park stamp for today

*Monday, May 14, 2018*

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On Sundays, I plan to post various walks that I took on our Four Corners trip as well as hikes I take locally while training for the Camino de Santiago; I may also post on other unrelated subjects. I will use these posts to participate in Jo’s Monday Walks or any other challenges that catch my fancy.

This post is in response to Jo’s Monday Walks.

petroglyphs in the four corners

wanderessence1025 October 18, 2018

Rock art and petroglyphs are widespread throughout the Four Corners area. They are like whispers of history from indigenous people, revealing something about their long-ago cultures.

Petroglyphs are images, symbols or designs scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on the surface of rock. Archeologists can guess at the meaning of the rock art, or they can ask contemporary indigenous communities about the meaning of these images.

In Utah, near Wolfe Ranch at Arches National Park, we found a stylized horse and rider surrounded by bighorn sheep and dog-like animals. Typical of Ute rock art, these figures were carved sometime between 1650 and 1850. Today this rock art panel is important to Native Americans in the region because it was created by their ancestors.

Ute Rock Art at Arches National Park

On Utah Highway Route 279 outside of Moab, prehistoric Native American rock art is found along the Colorado River and its tributary rivers, streams and side canyons. The rock art is depicted in either pictograph (painted) or petroglyph (pecked, incised, chiseled) images. Anthropomorphic (human characteristic) and Zoomorphic (animal characteristic) images are found here.

Cliffs along the Colorado River near Moab

Archeologists believe most of the rock art was created during Archaic (6,000-1000 B.C.) and Fremont (450-1300 A.D.) cultural periods.

Archaic rock art consists of pictographs and petroglyphs depicting anthropomorphs and zoomorphs, curvilinear lines, zigzags, wavy lines, concentric circles, and abstract symbols.

Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Fremont Indian rock art often depicts trapezoidal anthropomorphs with horns, bighorn sheep, dogs, hunting scenes with weapons, and abstract objects.

Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Archaic and Fremont Indian petroglyphs can sometimes be found on the same rock art panel.

Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

Native American groups ascribe religious functions to some of the rock art panels and consider them to be sacred sites. Rock art has also been interpreted as depicting concepts of migration routes, fertility, hunting magic, ceremonies, and cosmic events.

Petroglyphs on Rt. 279

At Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, the images below depict circular faces on a dark rock surface. Modern groups identify these as Kachinas, or spirit beings, in Pueblo religion and cosmology. Research suggests that the “Kachina culture” arrived in this region around 1300 A.D. Similar symbols, found on modern Puebloan pottery and weavings, remind us of the continuity between prehistoric sites and the present.

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

Contemporary tribes have identified the step symbol on the rock below as a migration symbol, an important theme in Puebloan oral history.

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

The dark coating on the boulder below is desert varnish – a concentration of mineral, clay, and organic material that accumulates over time Prehistoric artists created rock art by exposing the lighter material underneath.

Members of the Zuni tribe believe that this rock art depicts clan ties of the artist – perhaps a mother from the Crane Clan and father from the Frog Clan. An alternative Hopi interpretation recalls stories of a giant bird that came to villages to eat bad children.

The image below is similar to the white-faces ibis, a water bird, native to Petrified Forest, that eats frogs and other small animals. A close looks reveals what might represent water drops below the frog. This petroglyph likely represents aquatic resources and fertility.

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona

*May, 2018*

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“PHOTOGRAPHY” INVITATION: I invite you to create a photography intention and then create a blog post for a place you have visited. Alternately, you can post a thematic post about a place, photos of whatever you discovered that set your heart afire. You can also do a thematic post of something you have found throughout all your travels: churches, doors, people reading, people hiking, mountains, patterns, all black & white, whatever!

You probably have your own ideas about this, but in case you’d like some ideas, you can visit my page: photography inspiration.

I challenge you to post no more than 20 photos (fewer is better) and to write less than 500-700 words about any travel-related photography intention you set for yourself.

While I’m in Spain walking the Camino de Santiago from August 31 – October 25, and then in Portugal from October 26 – November 6, I kindly request that if you have a photography post you’d like to share, please simply link it to the appropriate post, this one or my next one as soon as it publishes. I will try my best to read your posts while I’m on my journey, but I won’t have a computer or the time or ability to add links to my posts.

My next scheduled photography post will be on November 1, 2018.

This will be an ongoing invitation, every first and third Thursday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

the ~ wander.essence ~ community

I invite you all to settle in and read a few posts from our wandering community. I promise, you’ll be inspired! See below in the comments for any links.

Thanks to all of you who shared posts on the “photography” invitation. 🙂

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