We recently started our "Summer Driving Tour", heading north from Tucson. We did a fun orienteering meet at Mingus Mountain and then spent a week in Flagstaff visiting friends and "old haunts". The next time I got the camera out was for our 1.5 days at Petrified Forest. We were lucky to see it in the rain last fall and now lucky again to see it in beautiful weather.
It will never (I hope) cease to amaze me that these giant petrified logs are lying around everywhere in the park:
I mean, they're just so cool!
It is also amazing that this park allows an actual event (the Phoenix club's orienteering weekend in October), AND they allow off-trail travel. Including published routes with instructions on how to find neat places off the beaten path. We set off to seek out the Dead Wash Overlook. One of many rock logs along the way:
Other fun rocky shapes:
Excellent desert terrain for off-trail travel:
We found the overlook - nice one!
Almost a toilet?
Yoga on the mound:
Back on the park road, contrasting the very new and the very old (OK, "old" is all relative in these parts, in this case I mean in US manufacturing terms):
Hey, that looks like a flatbed delivering 3 Rivian SUV's! The last time we were here we saw two Rivian Amazon vans on trucks going west. Weird coincidence.
I'd had my eye on a short FKT run in the park, the Red Basin Clam Beds. It was still available when we showed up (i.e. a fast woman hadn't run it yet) so I jumped on the opportunity.
My legs were happy for a faster effort, nice timing. I ran out to the clam beds area but couldn't immediately ID them. Maybe this was a clam fossil that broke off? Not sure, take a picture, move on...
John took his time out to the same area, and he did much better at understanding what to look for. This giant rock has a whole slew of clam fossils in it:
A closer look at the ancient seabed - thank you John!
Meanwhile, I was bopping over to that ridge up yonder:
On the other side of the ridge I found some shapely hoodoos:
Following a gpx track for once (way faster than trying to decipher a mostly-flat map), I dropped into the little drainage at the right spot:
The purples and greys and yellows made me smile, what a colorful place!
Wonder where this came from:
John was exploring when he found some totally different type of rock:
Petrified logs for good measure:
So much variety of layers on the loop around the mesa:
Whee, that was fun, and a solid speed workout:
The page with my FKT writeup and few more pictures: Red Basin Clam Beds - Marcy Beard
You could wander for days and keep seeing different shapes and colors:
So pretty.
Wood chip source:
More places to explore, some other time:
A petrified log that created a dam and then became a bridge, currently being held up by human-made concrete:
A giant log (one of many):
A log of another color:
A bit of cholla - there's not a ton of vegetation around here, I'm sure you have figured that out already:
Walking near the south visitor center:
Hello lizard!
An old dwelling, built from petrified pieces:
This park gets more fun and interesting every time we visit!
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