I drove to the park from the KOA campground where I was staying and it was about 30 minuets of a drive. The park charges a fee to enter and it is $25.00 but my pass got me into the park for free! They tell you on the way in to not take any petrified wood or rocks out of the park so take nothing and leave only footprints should be the motto for the day. The park has a North and South entrance and I chose the North entrance to begin my journey. The drive within the park is 26 miles and is a well paved road for the most part. The hiking in the park is relegated to a few paved trails and I have to say that if you go in the summer bring PLENTY of water. The number of hikers in the park were few and far between except on the Crystal Forest trail, more on the trails later. There is virtually NO shade in the park other than over a few picnic tables in the picnic area. The points of interest in the park had plenty of parking for cars and RV parking was ample. The day when I went it was windy at the overlook points but if you were on a trail you most likely did not have wind and it was a bit warm, high 80’s. Remember hydrate is the key to a successful hike even a short one.
The North entrance starts you out in the Painted Desert portion of the park. It is a short drive to the first observation point called Tipohi Point. The point offers you a place to view the wonderful different layers of color that give the Painted Desert its name. From there the next stopping point is Tawa Point and this gives you the first chance to get out and take a walk around the into the park. The hike is a 1 mile round trip and you stay on the top rim of the desert but you can see some wonderful desert formations and colors. The terrain is easy and the trail is not marked but Mr. Magoo could find his way to and from on this trail. I wore tennis shoes today and none of the trails was I thinking I needed something more substantial for the hike and I was correct. There is a trail from the visitor center to Tawa Point but if you take this trail either have someone bring your car around or you are walking back to the visitor center to get your wheels.
My next stopping point was Chinde Point as it has a restroom and picnic area. I used the restrooms and they were very nice compared to some of the others within the National Park system. The view from the point provided brilliant colors and it is just a great place to have a picnic or relax for a bit. Plenty of parking here and there also seemed to have a dump station for the RV people. No RV camping just backcountry camping in the park but you need 1 gallon of water per day and that you have to hump into the park since there is NO water. I skipped the next two stops (Nizhoni and Whipple points) to get away from a bad car parking with a trailer individual. He would park and have his trailer in the roadway into the parking area rather than use the RV area or he would stop in the roadway. It was better for me to just skip two and move on. Lacey Point was the next stop. Again the views of the landscape take your breath away. I also skipped the Route 66 stop as the old highway went right through the park and there is an old Studebaker showing where the famous road went. Many people are on a Route 66 tour and this is a stopping point for them on the old road. The road in the park then goes a bit and goes over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks and I was able to see a trail on the tracks. To be an engineer on the train would provide you with spectacular views. Puerto Pueblo was the next on the journey south in the park. The stop has a small .3 mile loop trail around some ancestral Puebloan homes. Newspaper rock was next and here you can see very large boulders up close but they are not the wood rocks just large boulders. Then came The Teepees but they don’t have a stop off point so you have to drive slowly and enjoy them on the drivers side of your vehicle. An offshoot of the mail road is a road to Blue Forest 3.5 miles and the Blue Mesa trail. I thought I was getting some Mexican food but nope it was a trail. The trail itself is only 1 mile but has a very steep part at the beginning of the trail heading down. You remember that what goes down must come up so be ready and the hike up is worth the hike down. You walk through a “forest” of trees turned to rock. Down on the hike you have some up and down but nothing really to speak about and the path is paved. Back in the car I went and the next stop was Agate Bridge. I wanted to download my photos before the bridge so I would know what location there were from and I was doing this in Dundee with the door open seeing the landscape. A guy pulled up in front of me, not a parking spot but in the roadway of the parking lot and got out of his car. He wanted to talk about my van and the van build. We talked for about 30 minutes and he did not make it to the people section due to not knowing how to park in a spot. After he left I finished with the photos and then went down to the Agate Bridge. This is really cool as it is a big log that is mainly intact and is now supported by concrete so that it will not fall apart. The large rock/tree is suspended above the earth as the earth has been eroded over the years. Off to Jasper Forest I went. Jasper Forest is lookout that you drive to from the main road. You get a view of the park from high ground and see your first big viewing of petrified wood. Note the wood in the petrified forest was down in the earth some 280 million years ago, that is before the dinos were walking around. Additionally, they were in a creek bed but today you can’t find water in this area go figure Mother Nature changing the landscape. Crystal Forest is the next stop and is also a place that you can hike/walk within the petrified forest. The hike like all hikes is on pavement and the park asks that you stay on the pavement. The length of the loop is .75 miles and has some hills but nothing that the average Joe who is out of shape could not handle. You do get to be up close and personal with these magnificent rocks that were trees. I heard a guy tell his wife that the rocks still look like trees and they do. In some places it looks like a lumberjack used a chainsaw to cut up the tree and left the logs on the ground for later.
The last stop of the journey was the South entrance visitor center parking area. From there it is a short walk to the Long Logs and Agate House trails. Both of these trails are accessed from the Long Logs access trail, an old road. When walking the paved trail I noticed a yellow line that was not in the middle, weird, but then came across a handicapped parking spot. That is when I figured out that it was a road in the past but now is a walk path. At the trail head I went to the Agate House first as it was on the right for me. The house trail is .5 miles each way from the trail head and it is well worth the walk. The house is build of stone and mud but the stone is petrified wood and it had 7 rooms. The house dates back to the 1000 AD. Upon making it back to the trail head you can go home or as I did and go see the long logs. The name of the trail does not do the length of the logs justice. I paced some of these out and they were over 90 feet long that I could see with a girth of more than 4 feet. Some of the trees had a girth that was almost 6 feet that you could see. That is some big trees/rocks now. I did not take the Giant Logs trail at the South visitor center lot as I had had a full day and wanted to just relax a bit.
Long Logs –
Agate House trail
Agate Bridge –
Blue Mesa
Chinde Point
Crystal Forest
Jasper Forest
Lacey Point
Newspaper rock
Puero Pueblo
Tiponi Point
The park is a must see for 1 time maybe 2 times but it is only a day trip so if you are going to be in the Grand Canyon area take an extra day and hump it to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert for some beauty of this country.
