Blue Mesa

Blue Mesa lies on a spur road about halfway along Petrified Forest National Park's main road. The loop drive, about 5 miles round trip, climbs onto the mesa past overlooks of badlands, hoodoos and the trail below. Halfway round, at a sun shelter, is the trailhead for the Blue Mesa Trail. The badlands here are banded blue, purple, gray and peach, and pieces of petrified wood lie scattered across them.

The color comes from the rock. These hills belong to the Chinle Formation, the Late Triassic layers that give the Painted Desert its name. They are largely bentonite clay, formed from volcanic ash blown here from volcanoes far to the west some 200 million years ago. NPS explains that red, orange and pink come from iron oxide, while green, blue and purple layers were deposited where there was little oxygen, and manganese oxide adds gray, blue and purple. Bentonite swells up to eight times its original mass when wet, then shrinks and cracks as it dries, so plants struggle to take hold. Heavy summer rains wash away as much as a quarter inch of rock a year from the steepest bare slopes. The mesa is made of the Blue Mesa and Sonsela Members, and paleontologists have found many plant and animal fossils in its layers.

The Blue Mesa Trail is a 1-mile loop, alternately paved and gravel, that starts with a steep descent from the mesa top and then winds among the badland hills. Most of it is not accessible for mobility devices. NPS suggests allowing 30 minutes to two hours. The area below the first three pullouts at Blue Mesa is closed to entry, so stay on the trail there, and take nothing: all petrified wood, rocks and fossils in the park are protected by law. There is no water in the backcountry and little shade. Leashed pets are allowed on the trail.

Timing makes a difference. NPS notes that monsoon moisture, from mid-June to the end of September, brings out the color and patterns in the formations, but thunderstorms, lightning and flash floods come with it, and you can be the tallest thing in this landscape, so plan to be off the trail in the afternoon. Blue Mesa fits into a drive through the park in either direction, with Puerco Pueblo to the north and the log fields of Rainbow Forest at the south end.