Petrified Forest National Park

Rainbow Forest

Some of the park's largest petrified logs lie close to the visitor center. The Giant Logs Trail begins behind the museum and covers 0.4 miles of easy paved path, passing numerous petrified logs, the largest of which goes by the nickname Old Faithful. The Long Logs Trail, a 0.6-mile loop, leads into the area where petrified wood is most plentiful. A half-mile spur off that loop reaches Agate House, a rebuilt pueblo made from petrified wood. Exhibits inside the Rainbow Forest Museum & Visitor Center explain the Late Triassic world and how the wood turned to stone, and fossils and prehistoric animal displays are also on view. Visitors can watch the park orientation film, and rangers have led hikes, talks and walks here.

Crystal Forest

Quartz crystals form inside many of the petrified logs here, and those crystals gave the trail its name. The paved loop of the Crystal Forest Trail winds among some of the most colorful petrified wood in the park, and walkers can get right up to large logs. Hiking the loop usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour, and the route curves through rolling gray and purple badlands. Leave the petrified wood where you find it so the next visitor can see it in the same condition. Photographers will find plenty of color to frame, since iron oxide and other traces mixed with the silica gave the wood its varied hues. The Jasper Forest Overlook, another stop in the park, looks across one of its largest collections of petrified wood.

Painted Desert

Multi-hued badlands of the Chinle Formation make up this landscape, where layers of red and white rise from the desert floor. Sunrise and sunset are favorite times to photograph the colored hills. The Painted Desert Overlooks, including Tawa Point and Kachina Point, give broad views across the badlands. The Painted Desert Rim Trail is an unpaved one-mile round trip through rim woodland, where in spring cliffroses and native wildflowers line the path and birds gather for cover and meals. The Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark, once a respite for travelers on Route 66, now holds exhibits on the area's recent history. Backpackers can enter the wilderness area but must carry their own water. The Painted Desert Visitor Center, designed by Richard Neutra, is part of a historic community complex.

Blue Mesa

Banded badlands in blue, purple, peach, and gray are formed from bentonite clay here, and the layers show up clearly once you are walking among them. The Blue Mesa Trail is a 1-mile loop that starts with a steep descent from the mesa top, and its mix of paved and gravel surfaces makes it a good choice for a first hike. Petrified wood lies scattered across the slopes, and paleontologists have found plant and animal fossils in the sedimentary layers. Hikers who want more can try the Blue Forest Trail, a rougher 3-mile round trip that links the Blue Mesa Trail with the main park road. For a moderate 3-mile hike along the mesa's edge, Billings Gap Overlook is worth the walk. Drive the Blue Mesa Scenic Road, stopping at the overlooks along the way, before or after you hike.

Puerco Pueblo

Ancestral Puebloan village ruins give this stop its focus on human history. Masonry walls mark the remains of a village of about one hundred rooms beside a paved trail of three-quarters of a mile, and its builders lived here more than 600 years ago. Visitors can hike the route and view petroglyphs. At the south end, the carvings are cut into rock, and one of them catches the sunrise on the summer solstice. Touching the carvings and climbing on the boulders or walls are not allowed. Partway along, a small museum housed in a Civilian Conservation Corps building displays exhibits on culture, archaeology and history. Around 1380 CE, the final residents moved away, and their descendants live in communities on the Hopi Mesas and at Zuni today.