CU #7-Petrified Forest National Park – II

CU #7-Petrified Forest National Park – II

April 2022

The Petrified Forest is quite a large area to take in. I skipped some sights the first time, and thought I’d return to take them in. I also noticed a trail down into the painted desert which I wanted to hike. So, I hope to interest you in my second adventure into the Petrified Forest. Driving further along the road through the park, the next new stopping point is an archaeological site.

Puerco Pueblo. A.D. 1250

Puebloan people were another prehistoric group that settled and built their villages in Arizona. The layout of the buildings and even the names of the rooms, were very similar to the Homol’ovi and Hopi. civilizations

An overview of the large area that can be walked through. Numerous informational plaques and unearthed ruins were clearly observable along the trail.
The path and some of the ruins of the area.
This is fascinating. There are over 1,000. settlement sites in the Park. This area is known as a “persistent place” because various people’s have lived there in the past for 13,000 years. Amazing.
Very extensive building that went on at that time here in North America. Not everyone lived in teepees. They had the skills and the knowledge to create cities that lasted thousands of years.

The pueblo in the picture below is a recreation of how one would have likely looked.

Somehow I don’t think it would have had those kinds of doors and windows though. 😅

On the inside was a lot of information of this settlement. It was nice to take my time and read most of it.

Some of the information provided . I’m hoping you can enlarge it on your device to read it clearly

There were petroglyphs along the path as well as ruins.

If you look at the picture in the plaque of the petroglyph… you can spot it on my photo. It is still so clear these thousands of years later. How did they do that.
Another petroglyph is visible on the square stone to the middle of the picture. Look at the shaded area…This city was located so high up with a tremendous over look. You couldn’t only “see into tomorrow” you could ” see into next month”!

This was an interesting stop after all. Next up…

Newspaper Rock

I wasn’t sure I was going to stop at Newspaper Rock. I remembered from years previously, that it was relatively anti-climatic. The pictures and postcards show it clearly and beautifully. However that is not what you observe at the site. Depending upon which way the sun is shining, it can be difficult to find, let alone make out. But I decided to stop just in case.

I hate to be negative, but it was as anti-climatic as I feared it might be. I brought my camera with the telephoto lens because I did remember that was needed in order to see the petroglyphs. At the look out, they had a set of standard, public usage binoculars. However, unfortunately, they were not soldered in place and that made it very difficult to line them up with the petroglyphs, if you could find them! Not surprisingly, I observed numerous people not even knowing where to look to see them! Those that seemed persistent, I would point out which rock to look at. They were always grateful. There are numerous rock surfaces in the area and some thought they had seen something looking like petroglyphs when they were looking in a totally different direction. 😲 So that site really needs some work. You are above the huge rock with the writing, looking down at it. It would be very helpful if they put a sign down in the ground with an arrow pointing to it so you know which rock to look at. And I am not kidding!

The overlook for Newspaper Rock. See everybody to the left? It’s right below where everyone is standing.

the large Rock surfaces below. The bright Sun on the face of some of the rocks and the shade of the other rocks makes it initially difficult to see. You do need binoculars or in my case, a telephoto lens. It’s the brownish area on the left. I thought it was the gray area! 🤔

The photo above and the next photos are the ones I took with my 35 mm camera and the telephoto lens.

With the telephoto it looks great! You really can hardly see it otherwise, that’s why they have the one set of binoculars there. 🙄
the petroglyphic symbols that are on that large boulder are quite impressive. I wonder how much of it would have been considered graffiti at their time ? 🤔

Onward….

The Teepees

Back out on the road. The next area of interest on the map was notated as “The Teepees.” I did not know what to expect. As I drove further south, the scenery changed from sights below, to scenery towering above! The road wove through a beautiful area with high, colorful hills on both sides of me. I drove out of the hills right into a flat area. I got out to take some photos of the flat land and striking hills.

In the beginning, the multicolored hills in the distance.
Then, up close. A unique and unexpected drive!!
Suddenly Coming out to the flatlands. Where the car is parked to the left, is a hiking trail that goes out in between those hills
I drove right out from hills on both sides of me into this flat area with mountains on the side. It was just unexpected and beautiful!

I stopped at a parking area to take pictures. Then I turned around, and WOW! Beautiful!! Now I recognized The Teepees! The colorful mountain – like hills formed the shape of a huge teepee. I drove right through it!! It was a very pretty area!! so I will include a number of photos .

Looking behind me! Teepees! They were so impressive!
I caught an RV going through it with my telephoto to give some perspective.

A couple teepees by themselves. You can see this one in the second photo above.

The Blue Mesa

I continued on and turned off of the main road onto a spur that leads to the Blue Mesa. The first day I went through, I could see a beautiful blacktopped path that went right down between the hills. (There were a couple of lookouts where I could actually see the people hiking and I wanted to take that trail in.)

the beginning of the blacktop trail before you start dropping down.
Path is starting to drop down . From this point on there are no railings. You have plenty of room to walk, just stay on the path!
View of the valley to the side of the path. Gorgeous and deep!
The path and view ahead of me. Heading on down…
Getting down to the valley.
interesting description of how the torrential rains, when they come, wash the soil down forming rivulets in the rocks . It changes from year to year.
Teepees in the valley! People on the path .

The path makes a big loop at the bottom of the valley to swing near the base of the hills before it returns. It was very, very warm down there! The path was 3 miles total.

if I’m going to go for a walk, this is the kind of walk I enjoy. Lots to see and experience.
Notice the colorful balaclava around my neck. I would pull it over my mouth & nose to help keep the dust out when the wind kicked up. Now we understand why the cowboys had neckerchiefs!

there was quite a bit of petrified wood in the valley as well! I was sooooo tempted to take one of those tiny pieces that were everywhere!!! But I did not 😇

I decided to take a picture to capture the memory instead.
a large area with the petrified wood. Hard to believe that at one time there was a forest down here…
Continuing the loop back.
It seems all the best hikes end with
Climbing uphill the last half mile! 😂.


climb, climb, climb! And when you see a bench up there, you know it’s going to be steep! Arizona and Utah leave very few benches around! You have to earn them!

200 steps, rest. 175 steps, rest. 150 steps, rest. 75 steps, rest. 50 steps, rest….you get the idea….🤔😃🌞 It can take awhile.

heading for the people on top. Getting closer but still not back to where the railings are... They are way up to the left… You can just barely see the black top path there.
the masked bandit is back to the top with a partly inside out baklava 🙄 hot, tired, but really glad I had a chance to hike down into that valley! The last hike in Arizona for the season.

I’m going to add here, a couple informational plaques that were along the path in the valley.

Interesting history dating back to the Triassic Period!
I enjoy reading them. Plus they give you permission to rest!!! 😅

This turned out to be a much longer post than I thought it would be. I will end this blog now so that I can post it. There will now be a part III as there is even more Park to explore! This was primarily The Painted Desert area and I’m crossing over into the primarily Petrified Forest area.

I hope you enjoyed experiencing the sites with me. If you have been here in the past, you may have noticed some changes. Stay well until next time! 🤗

P.S. since I am not on cable, it takes a while for every single picture to load. So the blog seems longer to me than it may to you!! 😂

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