Petrified Forest National Park

In the Late Triassic, about 225 million years ago, this part of Arizona lay near the equator on the edge of the supercontinent Pangaea. Trees that fell over some 20 million years were buried in river sediments mixed with volcanic ash from distant volcanoes, and over time they turned to stone. Erosion since the Colorado Plateau began to rise has stripped away most of the younger rock, leaving the logs on the surface among the banded badlands of the Chinle Formation. The park protects one of the world's largest collections of petrified wood, along with fossils of early dinosaurs such as Coelophysis and Chindesaurus, more than 1,000 archaeological sites and a stretch of historic Route 66.

President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Petrified Forest a national monument in 1906, in the second group of national monuments, and Congress made it a national park in 1962. It covers more than 200,000 acres in Navajo and Apache counties. A 28-mile road runs through the park between I-40 at exit 311 and US 180, and driving it without stopping takes about an hour; most visitors spend two to three hours. The north end lies in the red part of the Painted Desert, with overlooks such as Kachina Point and Tawa Point and the historic Painted Desert Inn. In the middle are Puerco Pueblo, an ancestral Puebloan village with petroglyphs, and the blue and purple badlands of Blue Mesa. The south end has some of the largest concentrations of petrified wood, at Crystal Forest and Rainbow Forest. The Giant Logs trail behind the Rainbow Forest Museum is a 0.4-mile loop past Old Faithful, the most massive log in the park. At the museum's demonstration lab, open Thursday to Saturday, you can watch paleontologists prepare fossils.

A few practical points. Entrance stations take only cards, though the shops and diner accept cash. In November 2026 the Painted Desert Visitor Center at the north entrance was closed for renovation, with reopening expected in June 2027, and visitor center operations were at the Painted Desert Inn, two miles in. The gas station, restaurant and gift shop at the north entrance remained open. Taking petrified wood, rocks, plants, pottery or anything else from the park is illegal. The wood sold in nearby shops comes from private land outside the park, which protects only a little over 20 percent of the original deposit. Leashed pets are welcome on trails. There is no campground, only wilderness camping with a free same-day permit, at least half a mile from your vehicle. The park is on Arizona time all year, so in summer it is an hour behind New Mexico and the Navajo Nation.