Petrified Forest National Park

In the Late Triassic, more than two hundred million years ago, this land was a warm, humid lowland laced with rivers, where tall conifers grew among early dinosaurs and giant amphibians. Fallen trees were swept into channels and swiftly buried by mud and volcanic ash, cutting them off from the air and preserving them from decay.

Across the ages, silica-rich water permeated the buried wood and replaced it cell by cell with stone, faithfully preserving the grain and structure while iron and other minerals painted it in brilliant colors. Later the land lifted and eroded, stripping away the covering layers and exposing the stone logs at the surface. The park's scenic drive and short trails lead visitors right among them, from scattered fragments to great fallen trunks and even a natural log bridge.

Humans have lived in and crossed this desert for thousands of years, and the park preserves the traces. Puerco Pueblo was once a village of many rooms where ancestral Pueblo people farmed and gathered, and nearby Newspaper Rock is covered with hundreds of petroglyphs pecked into the dark boulders, a dense record of the people who passed this way.

The ancestors of today's Hopi, Zuni, Navajo, and other Pueblo peoples moved through and settled this land, and these nations retain living ties to it and to its ancient sites. Some of the rock art tracks the sun and the seasons, a reminder of how closely these communities watched the sky. The park works with descendant peoples to care for and interpret these places as living heritage rather than mere ruins.

The park's northern section opens onto the Painted Desert, a sweep of badlands banded in reds, oranges, purples, and grays that shift and glow as the light changes. The historic Painted Desert Inn, a restored Pueblo Revival landmark with Hopi murals, overlooks this expanse and recalls the era when the park was a stop along old Route 66.

That highway history runs right through the park. A rusting old automobile and a line of poles mark the path of the Mother Road, and the park is proud to be one of the few units of the National Park System that the famous highway once crossed. Together the painted badlands and the Route 66 relics give the northern park a mood all its own, half geological wonder, half American road-trip nostalgia.

Spring and fall bring the most comfortable weather for driving the park road and walking the trails, with mild days and clear light that shows off the colors of the wood and the badlands, though spring winds can whip across the open plateau.

Summer days are hot and bright, eased somewhat by the high elevation and enlivened by afternoon monsoon storms that sweep dramatically over the desert, so visitors explore in the morning. Winter is cold and often windy, and a rare snowfall dusting the colorful hills is a beautiful sight. In any season the low, golden light of morning and evening is when the park is at its most stunning, deepening every band of color in stone and land.

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