Petrified Forest is best known for its ancient trees that have crystallized over 225 million years and turned to stone (Quartz) There is no actual forest, while they are not living trees, they are fossilized remnants—essentially logs turned into colorful stone.
A 28-mile scenic main park road runs north-to-south, connecting Interstate 40 to Highway 180, allowing visitors to drive through the colorful badlands and stop at numerous overlooks, hiking trails, and historic sites.
The Blue Mesa trail, Descending from the mesa, this alternately paved and gravel trail loop offers the unique experience of hiking among badland hills of bluish bentonite clay as well as petrified wood.
The park has several sites containing petroglyphs, but the largest concentration can be found at Newspaper Rock.
Park officials say the petroglyphs were created by Puebloan people living near the Puerco River between 650 and 2,000 years ago.
The Park Preserves an Old Section of Route 66, Route 66 has a history all to itself. Perhaps the most notorious of roads, it stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles and was known as the Main Street of America or the Mother Road. A portion of the old road, decommissioned in 1985, is preserved in the park.
