On our Grand Canyon visit, we sprung for an annual pass to National Parks, Forests, and Monuments. It was $80; a one-day pass to the Grand Canyon is $35. Our next stop was Santa Fe, and Leena saw that the interstate passed right through Petrified Forest National Park. Well, let’s start getting some return on that investment!
It was a great way to break up the drive. I can’t say I knew what to expect for the park, but you see pretty clearly that when a forest becomes petrified, there’s no forest still around. But there are old logs strewn all over the place. Except they’re now rocks.
Our trail map/guide book described the area as a badlands, pointing out that badlands are not only found in South Dakota, and are not just a Bruce Springsteen album. Now, I took a star off my review of the park because they described Badlands as a Springsteen album. Any fan knows it’s the first song on Darkness on the Edge of Town. Duh.
Some of the colors are striking.
One of the logs/rocks forms a natural bridge over an arroyo. It was reinforced with cement many years ago, though the park now states that they’ll let it collapse naturally when the cement fails.
We did a handful of short hikes. One went down into the canyon shown here.
The rock erodes quickly when it rains, and is described as elephant skin when dry. The clouds threatened, and there was a short shower just after we finished this hike.
Our last short hike took us along the rim of another canyon.
