Petrified Forest National Park, arizona
Attractions Guide

Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park is a vast scenic area of colorful desert hills, with fields full of ancient petrified wood fossils, some of which are over 200 million years old. Petrified Forest National Park is part of the beautiful Painted Desert, which hosts a surreal and highly photogenic landscape.

If heading north or east after visisting the Petrified Forest, you'll want to follow these attractions in reverse order, beginning your visit to the park at the southern entrance (from Highway 180).

First you can drive along the loop road north of Highway 40 where the Visitor Center is located, where you'll find several great viewpoints overlooking the stunning landscape of the Painted Desert, including Tiponi Point, Kachina Point, Pintado Point, and Lacey Point. All of these viewpoints face different directions overlooking the vast Painted Desert, offering various perspectives.

After enjoying the Painted Desert overlooks, you can take the extremely scenic route through the national park heading southwest until reaching Highway 180, which has a total length of about 29 miles (47 km). Along the way are many more viewpoints and trails, including the one of the park's most highly recommended hikes, the 1 mile (1.6 km) round-trip Blue Mesa Trail. This trail offers views over an otherworldly landscape of incredible bluish-purple hills.

Further down the road you can stop at the Agate Bridge formation, which is a fallen petrified tree bridge and viewpoint overlooking the desert. There's also the possibility of hiking around and further exploring this area.

Nearby the Agate Bridge is one of the most scenic viewpoints in the park, from which you can lookout over the colorful barren hills of the petrified Jasper Forest. This forest consists of endless logs of petrified wood spread out over a vast area.

A bit further south along the highway is the other most highly recommended hike in the park, the 0.9 mile (1.4 km) round-trip Crystal Forest Trail. This pathway is very easy but incredibly scenic, passing by many crystalized logs of ancient petrified wood set amongst the desert.

Many of the logs along the Crystal Forest Trail are very photogenic, and if you've ever seen photos of these amazing petrified logs up-close, the pictures were likely taken along this trail. This wonderland of crystal logs looks most photogenic around sunset.

Rainbow Forest Museum

Near the southern entrance / exit to the park you can visit the Rainbow Forest Museum, which houses some of the most beautiful crystalized logs found at the park, as well as prehistoric fossils of animals and dinosaurs found around this area of Arizona. Just outside of the museum is a short circular pathway filled with giant petrified logs.