Escalante Petrified Forest State Park

This region has long been part of the homeland of the Southern Paiute people, and the wider Escalante canyon country holds sites left by the Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont peoples, who farmed and hunted here roughly a thousand years ago, leaving granaries and rock art in the side canyons. Their descendants and the Paiute people maintain ties to this land today.

The town of Escalante was settled by Mormon pioneers in the 1870s and named for a Spanish friar who passed through the region a century earlier while seeking a route across the West. For generations the town was one of the most isolated in Utah, connected to the outside world only by rough roads. The state park was established to protect the petrified wood and provide recreation at the reservoir, and it has become a friendly first stop for visitors heading into the surrounding wilderness.

The petrified wood here comes from trees that grew and fell many millions of years ago, then were buried in mud, ash, and sand that sealed them off from decay. Over vast stretches of time, mineral-rich water seeped through the buried wood, and dissolved minerals slowly filled and replaced the wood cell by cell, turning it to solid stone while preserving the grain, bark, and rings.

The brilliant colors, reds, yellows, oranges, purples, and whites, come from traces of iron, manganese, and other minerals that stained the stone as it formed. Erosion has since worn away the softer rock around the ancient logs, leaving the hard petrified wood scattered across the hillside like a spilled treasure. Visitors are asked to admire and photograph the pieces but leave every one where it lies, so the display stays whole for those who follow.

Wide Hollow Reservoir is the park's other half, a broad, calm pool that draws swimmers, paddlers, and anglers to its shore. Trout and bass live in the water, and the reservoir is a welcome spot to cool off after a hot hike or to launch a kayak at sunset with the desert glowing gold around it. A campground along the shore makes it easy to stay the night.

The main hiking loops climb the fossil hill from near the reservoir, one shorter route and one longer, rougher trail that reaches the best concentrations of petrified wood. The paths are short but earn their views, taking in the reservoir, the town, and the broad sweep of country toward the distant canyons and mountains that ring the Escalante basin.

The mix of water and desert draws a variety of life. Waterbirds and shorebirds visit the reservoir, songbirds fill the streamside brush, and mule deer, rabbits, and lizards move through the surrounding sage and pinyon-juniper country. In the water, fish rise in the cool of morning and evening, and beavers and muskrats leave their signs along the banks.

Spring and fall bring pleasant temperatures for hiking the fossil hill, while summer heat makes the reservoir a welcome refuge and the early hours the best for the trail. Winter is quiet and cold, sometimes dusting the petrified wood and the surrounding hills with snow, and the town of Escalante settles into the calm of the off-season.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.