What Is Petrified Forest National Park?
Petrified Forest National Park is a vast landscape of ancient Triassic fossils and painted desert!
What Makes It Beautiful?
Go to Petrified Forest and discover a landscape covered in massive jewels! Against the mostly gray backdrop, discover hues of red jasper, purple amethyst, white quartz, and more vivid minerals that have formed over millenia in the trunks of these incredibly old trees! Enjoy the rugged buttes and hoodoos, but marvel at the palette of the Painted Desert. Layers of red, white, and gray along hills rolling away to the horizon outdo any human artist’s conception of them! This is the Arizona desert at its finest, and the neat thing is, you can take a trail right out into it, away from tourists, and sometimes away from sound altogether!
How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?
- Pay the entrance fee to help maintain trails, signs, structures, and other visitor services!
- Volunteer at Petrified Forest National Park!
- Donate to Petrified Forest National Park!
- Be a responsible visitor! Remember the old adages: Pack out what you pack in! Take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints!
How Do I Get There?
There are two entrances! The north entrance is 24 miles east of Holbrook, Arizona on I-40, while the south entrance is on State Highway 180, 18 miles east of Holbrook!
(Take Me There!)
When Should I Visit the Park?
I suggest the spring time because of the flowers, though it would be really cool to see the Petrified Forest in the snow! The park road is open at different hours each month, with longer hours in summer and shorter hours in winter, so the safe zone to visit is between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM!
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