Petrified Forest National Park is deceptive. You drive through hours of flat, featureless desert to get there expecting to find nothing but petrified wood, but end up discovering so much more.

Maybe this is why Petrified Forest is one of the best under-the-radar national parks in the country, a real hidden gem.

In one small park, you’ll find:

• Painted Desert vistas
• Ancestral Puebloan ruins and petroglyphs
• Route 66 history
• badlands that look like another planet
• and of course fossilized tree trunks from over 200 million years ago.

The park is straightforward, with a north and a south entrance and one road connecting the two. With the Shaka Guide tour, you can start at either entrance.

We’ve got 9 stops on our tour.

Expect to spend 3-4 hours exploring, unless you plan on doing several hikes, in which case you could spend most of the day here.

A full day is a pretty comprehensive exploration of Petrified Forest.

The tour has three starting points:  along I-40 (Holbrook), I-40 (Chambers), and Route 180 Holbrook, AZ. We’ll guide you through the park with stories along the way. This itinerary is starting from I-40 eastbound.

Itinerary

1. Painted Desert Visitor Center

NPS/Jacob Holgerson

• Approximate Time: Under 20 minutes

Ask rangers questions about the park, grab detailed maps for ‘off the beaten path’ trails, and browse the gift shop at the park’s northern entrance visitor center.

Grab lunch at the Painted Desert Diner, the only place to eat a meal in the park.

The adjacent gas station is the only gas available in the park.

2. Kachina Point and Painted Desert Inn

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: 30-60 minutes 

Another fabulous view of the Painted Desert, this stop is also home to the Painted Desert Inn, a Route 66 hotel featuring interior design work by Mary Jane Colter and murals by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie.

You can also take the easy Painted Desert Rim Trail from the parking lot to the nearby Tawa Point. The hike is one mile, round trip.

3. Puerco Pueblo

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time:20 minutes

The Ancestral Puebloans built this pueblo with more than 100 rooms over 700 years ago.

The ruins are accessible along an easy paved path, which also passes some easily spotted petroglyphs left by the original inhabitants. 

4. The Tepees and Blue Forest Trail

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: 2 hours

The terrain in Petrified Forest transitions to an alien landscape of gray and blue badlands.

Within this landscape are The Tepees, a set of conical, banded hills that resemble tepees.

The south pullout for The Tepees is the trailhead for the Blue Forest Trail, moderately difficult and 3 miles out and back through stunningly spartan badlands.

This is one of the park’s unmaintained ‘off the beaten path’ trails.

Make sure to grab a map with pictures from the visitor center!

If you decide to hike, then expect to spend more than an hour here.

There are some narrow sections and steep drop-offs as you climb higher, and the trail may be slippery when wet.

5. Blue Mesa Trailhead

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: 1 hour

The 1-mile Blue Mesa trail is the most accessible way to immerse yourself in the otherworldly badlands of the Blue Mesa.

There is a steep descent, but the trail is paved and mostly flat once you reach the bottom.

An additional lookout about 1,000 feet further down the road from the trailhead allows visitors who aren’t up for a hike to gaze into the Blue Mesa and the petrified wood deposit below.

6. Agate Bridge

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: Under 15 minutes

This 100-ft-long petrified log sits on top of a small chasm, forming a bridge.

When the park opened, visitors could stand on top of it!

Today, the log is off-limits and supported by concrete, but this is a quick, easy stop for an impressively long piece of petrified wood. 

7. Jasper Forest

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: 30 minutes

An overlook sits over a desert plain with a dense petrified wood deposit below.

Want a closer look? Another ‘off the beaten path’ trail leads from the right of the parking lot down to the deposit following a well-worn path to the wash.

Then it’s just you and the petrified wood–a truly astonishing and bizarre landscape. 

8. Crystal Forest

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: 30 minutes

This paved loop is under a mile long, making this one of the most accessible places to walk among petrified wood in the park.

The path is wheelchair and stroller-friendly, though there are some minor ups and downs as you go.

9. Rainbow Forest Museum & Giant Logs, Long Logs, and Agate House Trails

Matthew Caracciolo

• Approximate Time: 1 to 2 hours

The Rainbow Forest Museum highlights the park’s fossil discoveries from the Triassic Period.

You can also shop for petrified wood and other gifts at the shop across the street.

Behind the Rainbow Forest Museum is the entrance to the Giant Logs Trail, a half-mile unpaved loop that passes some of the largest petrified wood in the park.

Across the bridge from all of this is the trailhead to the Long Logs and Agate House trails, a combined 2.6 miles round trip.

Long Logs takes hikers to another petrified wood deposit with a dramatic badlands backdrop.

Agate House leads to a reconstruction of a pueblo built with petrified wood.

Final Thoughts

These stops will give you the full Petrified Forest experience, but future travelers depend on you to keep it that way.

Removing petrified wood from the park is not only a federal offense, it devalues the park’s scenic beauty and scientific merit.

Let’s leave petrified wood where we find it, and save the souvenirs for the gift shop.

Protecting the environment, preserving special places for future generations, and supporting local businesses, that’s how we travel responsibly–the Shaka Guide way!

Ready to take the tour? Check out Shaka Guide's Petrified Forest National Park Tour!

We hope that we’ve given you all the information you need to make the most of your day. Your vacation is extremely important to us so if you have any questions feel free to reach out at aloha@shakaguide.com.

Ready to explore the Petrified Forest National Park with Shaka Guide? Check out everything you need to know before you go here! 

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