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Published: June 18th 2014
We arrived at a campground in
Holbrook and were met by a very friendly chap who gave us lots of information on what to see and do in the area.
As we settled in we were greeted by the two sisters and their husbands from Kansas that we had met in Williams and they came over to say hello. They had been speaking to the campground owner about us and our van and he said, ‘that’s funny an English couple had just arrived in such a van’…….. we are becoming ‘celebrities’ throughout the west……..
Holbrook was to be our base to see both the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert which we had wanted to visit since we were told by our Australian friends, Alan and Bronwyn that it was a beautiful place to visit.
Holbrook itself is a smallish town of about 5,000 people which has an interesting historic Navajo County Courthouse building as well as an unusual Wigwam Motel which was built in the 50s and is listed in the National Register. It comprised sleeping units fashioned after the teepees of the Plains Indians
all arranged in an open rectangle to resemble an original Indian village, we decided we were better off in our camper van......
The next day we set off early for our visit to the
Petrified Forest National Park. After 56 years as a national monument the Petrified Forest was finally made a national park on December 9, 1962. We were becoming confused between a
National Park and a National Monument as we always assumed that a Monument was one structure. However apparently a national monument is intended to preserve
at least one nationally significant resource, whereas a national park is usually larger and preserves a variety of nationally significant resources - so a National Monument could be more than one resource as well and not be a 'monument' at all………..
The area around the park had been inhabited for over 13,000 years but a lot is still unknown and yet to be discovered. Puebloan people who were the ancestors of the
Hopi and Zuni Indians built villages and ancient petroglyphs are found throughout the park from those times. It is believed that severe drought in the 13th century however ended
Indian civilisation here, as when Spanish explorers passed through the area in 1540 the area was abandoned.
As soon as we entered the park gates we were surrounded by ‘the forest’. The name of the park, and its major reason for creation, is the rich collection of petrified wood found here. It is the most spectacular collection of petrified wood ever found anywhere. We stopped by the small museum which was interesting and we learned a lot about how the wood became ‘petrified’ in the first place.
The
petrified wood found in the park began its existence as large trees from an ancient forest over 200 million years ago. After falling, the trees were washed downstream from as far as 50 miles away onto a flood plain which lay on the current area of today’s park. The logs were buried by silt, mud and volcanic ash from distant volcanoes. Over time, as water seeped toward the buried logs waterborne silica slowly replaced the wood tissue and created the petrified logs.
In 1853 the Whipple Exhibition discovered the existence of the petrified wood but the beautiful specimens proved
irresistible to collectors and large quantities were removed. In the late 1800s people were destroying the logs to get at gemstones hidden inside.
The major impetus for creating a park came from a desire to protect the rapidly diminishing store of petrified wood in the park.
In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt created the nation's second national monument in the southern portion of the current park and as mentioned above it became a national park in 1962.
After visiting the museum we walked around the
‘Giant Log’ area outside. A walkway leads you through one of the main areas to view the ‘forest’ In many areas large logs, stumps, and even chunks of crystal could be seen. Unfortunately, pilfering and removal of the specimens of petrified wood continue to this day as it is such a huge task to ‘police’ the huge area. You are stopped at the entrance gates by Rangers and asked if you have any petrified wood and also at the exit gates but we were not searched on our way out. A number of security measures, such as closing the park before sundown, have
been implemented to try to control the problem but I do not think there is any real answer.
You can purchase the petrified wood from commercial sources which is collected from private areas outside the park. It comes in many colours from yellow, red, blue, black, brown, white and pink and local artists create some lovely jewellery and interesting objects but some of them are really heavy and too big for our small suitcases!
In some areas there were huge sections of whole trees lying dormant on the ground and all around what looked like wood chippings which were now ‘stone’ chippings. The largest of the trees in the park is known as ‘Old Faithful’, which has a diameter of nine and half feet and this was really spectacular to see. Lovely spring flowers including many cacti were bursting out between the log making the landscape quite stunning.
The 28 mile park road offered many overlooks and trails and we set of to explore them all. The first one we came to was called the Crystal Forest a 3/4 mile loop walk which had lots
of colourful petrified logs as we walked around which was quite an easy walk with just a few steep inclines - the ankles were good.
Further on we walked to the
Agate Bridge where a huge petrified log had crossed a dry river bed and formed a natural agate bridge.
The weather started to change as we approached the
Blue Mesa which was one of the most striking areas in the park featuring a lunar looking landscape. We had some lunch out of the back of the van and decided despite the weather to set out on the one mile loop walk - described as moderately strenuous....... Descending from the mesa, the paved and gravel trail looped among badland hills of bluish bentonite clay and petrified wood, the colours of the sculpted hills was astonishing even with poor light and the grey clouds overhead. The thunder roared and lightning started to flash but we had nowhere to shelter so just kept walking and we were soon negotiating the hill back to our parked van just as the storm eased.......
Further along the road we stopped at the
‘The Tepees’ so named because of their resemblance to Indian dwellings again wild spring flowers dotted the landscape. The Tepees were small tent shape pyramid hills set in a small group alongside the roadside with horizontally colourful lines.
Next we came to
Newspaper Rock which contained a dense concentration of fine petroglyphs left by generations of Native Americans, some you had to find with binoculars before you could hope to take a photograph but once found you were amazed at all the different pictures which must have taken so long to draw all those year ago. Just opposite Newspaper Rock we stopped at
Puerco Pueblo, this is the park's largest archaeological site, where we were able to view the remains of homes built by the people who created the park's petroglyphs. It is not currently known what the significance of the drawings might be, although some say that one of the drawings could have been a solar calendar. What seemed to stand out on one of the fallen stones was a very large wading bird with something in its mouth that looked like a wriggling human person!!!! It was strange to walk amidst the remains of these building particularly
the large hundred room pueblo, occupied by the ancestral Puebloan people over 600 years ago - a huge mansion by today’s standards - but how many people actually lived here!!
We drove on crossing under the main highway and into the area known as the
Painted Desert which had its own visitor centre at the end of the roadway and at our exit of both parks. Arizona's Painted Desert gets its name from bands of red, white and yellow sediments and bentonite clay of the Chinle rock formation, exposed by erosion. These colorful formations stretch from about 30 miles north of Cameron near the Grand Canyon, and run southeast, ending just beyond the Petrified Forest. We chatted to a Ranger who was nearby and he said that the colours were usually much clearer but that we should get out and walk around as it was such a lovely place for hikes.........
We did stop at various scenic overlooks with lovely names like;
Lacey, Whipple, Nizhoni, Pintado & Chinde Points but it was a shame it was so overcast now as the colours would have been really vivid but still they were quite
stunning to look at. We visited one of the few buildings in the park, the
Painted Desert Inn, originally built as a roadside inn and long a respite for folks traveling west on Route 66, now of course Interstate 40, which runs through the park. The Inn occupies a position on the rim above the Painted Desert and now serves as a museum and does not take any one in for the night. Within the building we chatted to a couple of rangers and some local ladies who were weaving a beautiful cloth which was quite expensive to buy but they said it would take about one month working eight hour days to complete the cloth which would mean that if they managed to sell it at the price quoted they would make about £1 for every hour they worked…………
The Painted Desert Inn is currently listed as a National Landmark and was well worth the stop it was like stepping back in time. It was originally built in 1924 as an Inn but in 1936 was purchased by the National Park Service. It was a mixture of Spanish and Indian pueblo styles and inside
featured some beautiful murals painted in 1947 by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie. From the main room you could gaze out on the wonderful view of the painted desert all around you it must have been a fantastic place to have stayed the night.
We stopped to look out over Tawa and Tiponio Points before leaving the park and getting back on to the main highway. We headed back to our campsite in Holbrook where we met George & Cheryl a couple from from Louisiana, we had met them a few hours earlier at one of the various outlooks in the painted desert. They had just purchased a Canon camera and asked us some advise on how to use it - I said that we were novices too.
Whilst chatting to them another couple from Arkansas invited us round to join them for supper at their van but we had just eaten so had to decline - very friendly these Americans we keep meeting. We also had a long chat with Fred and Janet from New Jersey who were touring in a very old yellow jeep. George & Cicilea were great fun to talk to
also. George said that his son had called and said, ‘Dad, how was your day’ - ‘well Son we went into the Petrified Forest today and I never saw one tree’! The son said, ‘when are you coming home as I am getting really hungry with none of mum’s cooking to look forward to’, ‘well son we have not scheduled our return date on the calendar yet’!
We enjoyed our stay in Holbrook, met some nice people and the campsite was good and even had a kitchen. When we were eating in the kitchen one evening we saw a lovely hummingbird flying in - it had built its nest just above our dining room table…….
We left early the next morning to move on but as we were going to pass the entrance to the Painted Desert again we thought we would travel a little way back in to see if there was any better light to take some more photographs but alas it was not to be as it was still overcast so we will continue our journey heading towards the
Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley -
see you there.
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
Amazing landscapes
It may have been overcast, but your Painted Desert photos still looks pretty surreal. Glad you're also meeting friendly Americans and your ankle is up to hikes. One sees so much more when following the trails in parks and not just driving through. You were lucky you didn't get soaked by the storm--the southwest can have some dramatic summer thunderstorms. Hope you enjoy some and stay dry!