Petrified Forest and Painted Desert: 12.26.19

11/27/2020
Travel

We completed this adventure during the northern Arizona winter. It was cold, but not unbearable. What did make it challenging, however, the wind. The God forsaken wind! For the first part of the journey in the Painted Desert, it is explicitly designed to only be accessed at two points, the ends, which connect highways. The wonder itself is nuzzled between the two highways and unless you were away of its existence, you would drive right past it. There is nothing visually distinct about it, at least, nothing that you can see from either entrance point. There is nothing that would naturally make you turn your head and decide to alter your course. It looks like every other piece of the desert. 

Nonetheless, once you do make the conscious decision to wonder down the path, it becomes worth it. Read that carefully, it becomes worth. By the I mean you drive up to a sign, introducing the area as the Painted Canyon and Petrified Forest. Just a sign. There is nothing connecting the sign to the promised destination at this point. So, you drive still. After a little bit, you come to a visitor's center type of place. It is a relatively well preserved restaurant. The owner provided us with a mini-tour (I am guessing they do not get many visitors and an excuse to interact with others, even at the expense of potentially being perceived as boring, is a risk one is willing to take). She described how the area came to be, noting prospectors, money rolling in, the whole gamut. It was very interesting and also gave us some time to thaw from the dreadful wind.

When we were ready to leave, she wished us well. This part of the exhibit if you will is designed like a tourist trap. Every few hundred yards there is a stop where you can get out of the car and look at the haphazardly named site. Nothing too memorable at this juncture. However, once you get about midway, you come across the Blue Mesas. They do have a hint of blue to them. They are layered mesas (the continued painted effect seen in the desert that came before it), but the tint of blue and ability to captivate was more palpable and worth giving our attention. At this site, there was an opportunity to get out of the car and actually hike down into the Blue Mesas and be among them. Towards the beginning of the trail, tehre are some heiroglyphs. It really did look and feel alien, almost as though this landscape was put in this location by accident or erroneous left behind. We spent a good two or three hours exploring this area.

As we continued down the road, we approached the end of the detour, the Petrified Forest. Now at the Petrified Forest, we could see how this too could be a starting point for some travelers. Anyway, the Petrified Forest is incredibly anticlimactic. It is a relatively flat portion of the desert with well-groomed predetermined paths to guide you through the "forest."  All the trees are in pieces scattered throughout this part of the desert. They were most certainly petrified. Whether they naturally deteriorated and then preserved like this or somewhere down the line were cut, it is uncertain, but there were no interesting or peculiarly shaped trees. Everything was laying on the ground. Neat pit stop, but definitely not worth more than 30 minutes of exploration.

Keep detouring!