Petrified is the last Park on our initial Trek thru the Parks. It's been quite a journey thus far. Terry and I have had a most excellent time...and yet, after 19 days on the road, we are now getting anxious to get back home.
Let it be known to anybody reading this blog that my sense of humor is somewhat twisted and often misconstrued! If there has been any indication in previous blogs that Terry was NOT a Happy Camper...let me set the record straight! She will attest to having thoroughly enjoyed this entire Trek and looks forward to our future Treks! The two of us have had perhaps the most pleasant and intimate experience with one another since we began our relationship!
And this comes at a time whereby the past 19 days...we've spent 7/24 with one another. That had to be a first for us in our marriage as in our past, work would separate us for days at a time. Absence may make the heart grow fonder...yet Trekking together has strengthened the bond between us!
All that being said...she's as pleased as I about our Trek thru the Parks! Just ask her!
We spent last night at the Holiday Inn in Holbrook, AZ (no Hampsters in Holbrook) a smallish community about 25 miles west of Petrified. We're in no rush to get moving this morning. After repacking our Stagecoach, we head eastbound on I-40 and enter the Park's North Entrance...pick up Pin #13 and proceed on to our first stop.
This area of the Park is known as the Painted Desert - a colorful display light and shadow. So what is the Painted Desert and exactly where is it? After all, throughout our Trek, Terry and I have witnessed many such landscapes. Here in Petrified, the Painted Desert is defined as a crescent shaped arc lying north of I-40. At least that's what the map says. I say the Painted Desert resides all along the Colorado Plateau. We've witnessed its beauty in Zion, in Bryce, in Arches and in Canyonlands.
As for what it is...the guidebooks say that the Painted Desert is "characterized by peculiar and picturesque greenish, yellowish, and purplish hillocks eroded in the Chinle Formation."
About a mile and a half up the road from the Visitor's Center sitting on Kachina Point resides the Painted Desert Inn. Back in the day, this building was a functioning Hotel constructed completely out of petrified wood! The Park Service decided that it would be a bit hypocritical to include in its jurisdiction an Inn made out of the very substance they tell all visitor's is off limits.
Addressing this issue, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was commissioned in the late '30's to completely renovate the building to its present state.
Painted Desert Inn Mural
During one of the Inn's remodeling jobs, Hopi Artist Fred Kabotie was commissioned to paint a series of murals on the walls of the dining room and lunch room.
To brighten up the main living room of the Inn, glass panels were installed in the ceiling above. These panels were hand painted with designs inspired by ancient pottery.
Not nearly as well preserved as the Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde, Puerco Pueblo is the remains of a 100-room Pueblo that was supposed to have housed nearly 1200 people. Let's do the math. 100 rooms - 1200 people. That would be 12 people per room!
If this is true, these Puebloians must have lived like sardines in very tight quarters! I think I'm calling BS to this accounting of these ruins! Ah ha! I just read another account regarding Puerco and it states that this dwelling most likely housed 200 peeps. Now that I can buy!
Besides the Ptarmigan we happened upon in Black Canyon, this critter is by far the most colorful of all the wildlife we encountered! He sat up on the rock, posed for me for about 30 seconds, then scampered off into the desert!
A visit to a High Desert National Park would not be complete without another viewing of the ancient graffiti artist's handiwork. Adjacent to Puerco Pueblo you will find a rather nice collection of petroglyphs. Once again...let your imagination run wild when trying to decipher the meaning of these works of art.
One of the largest petroglyphs found within the bounds of Petrified Forest is this image of a mountain lion. This work of art is on display at the Painted Desert Inn having been removed from its external origin many moons ago.
More petroglyphs can be viewed at the Newspaper Rock viewing platform.
This unusual landscape includes a region denoted as the Teepee district. The colors of the Teepees include a distinct white layer of sandstone. The cap of the Teepee is clay. The dark layers are created by soils containing a high carbon content. The darker red zone is iron-stained siltstone. And the reddish bases of the Teepees is hermatite stained by iron oxide. So there you go!
The concrete pillars and support underneath this lengthy petrified log is highly uncharacteristic of present day Park Service policy, which strictly prohibits tampering with or altering the natural state of artifacts within Park boundaries.
These supports were done prior to the adaption of modern day policy. Today this Log would be left to fend for itself and if the waters below were to wash out its support system, it would most likely break into many smaller chunks and fall to the floor of the stream bed....
...like this one! Sadly, Petrified Forest did not become a protected Park until long after much of the prized wood had been removed. It would be quite difficult to remove a Delicate Arch or try to haul away Half Dome or one of the Rocky Mountains...yet, it is very easy to pilfer the treasures lying on top of the ground at this Park.
Everywhere there are signs prohibiting the collection of the petrified wood. And yet every week, hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of the Park are hauled off by its visitors in spite of the warnings and the fines if caught. It is estimated the park loses upwards of 25,000 pounds of petrified wood each year.
Petty theft is bad enough...however, stealing a candy bar from the local grocer is the taking of a replaceable item. Stealing petrified wood from the Park means pilfering an irreplaceable monument that took 225 million years to produce. In essence, petrified wood thieves are stealing from all of us.
So, how did this forest end up petrified? Go back in time 225 million years ago near the end of the Triassic period. This now desolate landscape was once a thick forest with an abundance of lakes, rivers and streams. When the trees fell into the bodies of water they floated for awhile before becoming waterlogged and sinking to the bottom.
Once bottomed out, silicone rich water begin to seep into the the pores of the wood. Over time, the silicone came out of the watery solution and mixed with oxygen to began forming minute crystals of quartz within the spaces in the tissues of the logs. Eventually, the entire body of the log was taken over by the silica.
Mix in other elements like iron, manganese, cobalt and chromium and the logs began to take on a wide range of colors! There you have it! Petrified Wood 101.
The Granddaddy of the Forest
I took almost one hundred shots of petrified trees. No matter how beautiful the color of the log, it got to the point where my eyes grew weary of looking at these fossilized monsters. However, when we came across this beast...my shutter flashed one last time. This specimen is named Old Faithful and is located by the Park's South Entrance.
We began our journey by visiting Zion and ended the first leg of our Trek here in Petrified. If we were to do it all over, Terry and I agree we would have reversed the order of our visits. Petrified is an intriguing exhibition of the amazing forces of Mother Nature...interesting...yet for Terry and I, it didn't even come close to comparing to the awesome beauty and grandeur of Zion.
Nevertheless, we made the tour of Petrified in a little over 4 hours thus completing our goal of trekking through all 9 of the Parks we had planned on visiting during this leg of our Trek thru the Parks. We've now visited 13 of the 40 Parks we have set out to experience!
Eager to get home, we depart the Petrified at 2:30 pm. We're pulling into Phoenix around 6pm and the thermometer in the car is telling us that the outside temperature is hovering around 109 degrees! Welcome home Phoenicians. Summer has arrived!
Well folks, this concludes Leg One of the Binkelian Summer Tour of our National Parks. As I sit here finishing up this chapter of the TrekTrax blog, I am already beginning to plot our our next few destinations! Trust me...they will be in the high country! We need to escape this hellhole known as Phoenix in the summertime! Until we meet again, I encourage you to throw together some camping gear and go out and experience YOUR National Parks with those you love. In my humble opinion...they truly are "America's Best Idea!" Happy Trails my friends...(and blog critics!) I love you all!
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