Petrified Forest National Park

Visiting Petrified Forest National Park | Driving from the Southern to Northern Entrance of the Park | January 2026

We awoke in the Crystal Forest campground to a cool and cloudy morning. We didn’t waste any time packing up and heading into the National Park, knowing we only had half a day before the next round of precipitation would hit. This would be our second visit to Petrified Forest National Park. Our first visit was in March of 2015 during Curtis’ senior year spring break trip, when it was the last stop on our road trip to the 5 Utah National Parks. I remember that we enjoyed our visit, but after having visited five gorgeous national parks, we were a little underwhelmed by this one. Today, this park would be our only focus, and we were going in with open minds and a new perspective on life, travel, and national parks.

We entered at the Southern entrance, then started our visit at the Rainbow Forest visitor center. We took our time walking through the exhibits in the museum, then set out on our first walk on the Giant Logs loop trail. Our last visit had been on a warmer and sunny day, with blue skies and small puffy clouds which brought out the vibrant colors of the badlands throughout the park. Today was much more overcast, giving the area a completely different look, but still beautiful nonetheless. The sun peeked through the clouds as it was rising during this hike, highlighting the landscape with golden light.

Next, we began our slow drive North through the park. There are plenty of short hikes along the way, which was perfect for us today because we wanted to get a little taste for everything this park serves to protect, but also we didn’t want to spend too much time outside at once because of the cold and wind. Our second hike of the day was the Crystal Forest Trail, a mile long loop that highlights how much petrified wood is scattered around the area, while also showcasing the colorful badland landscape in hues of blue and purple.

We couldn’t remember all the trails we hiked last time, but I knew at least a few that we didn’t, so we made a point to hike those today. This brought us to the Puerco Pueblo Trail, which preserves some of the history in the area. The loop trail starts out by taking you to views of petroglyphs on the rocks and ruins from homes that once belonged to the native population, and then we walked through the small exhibit about the history of Route 66 and the people that the highway brought to the area.

As we drove to the North entrance, I remembered what I wrote on our last visit, about how the scenery left us underwhelmed. Obviously having just seen 5 incredibly scenic national parks in Utah played a part in that, but I also think that I didn’t understand at the time that national parks don’t exist just to be a showcase of beautiful scenery and hiking areas, but instead serve to protect something unique and special. In this case, it’s the large amount of petrified wood (as the name suggests!) as well as the history from the area — from the fossils and dinosaur bones, to the natives that called it home, to the eventual highway that brought more people to the area than ever. And it’s a gift to us that leaders before us decided to protect this area and preserve the petrified wood and the reminders of those that walked the area before us, so that we could see it all in situ today and walk away with a new perspective. How sad would it be if it wasn’t protected and others were able to come and gather all the wood and the fossils and artifacts so we couldn’t enjoy it?!

When we made it to the Northern part of the park, we stopped at a few lookouts, then walked through the Painted Desert Inn, which I think we skipped last time. We enjoyed the pink landscape of the Painted Desert before returning to the van for lunch. We contemplated our next move, as the rain/snow? was supposed to start soon. We could either stick to I-40 and end up just sleeping at a rest stop, or we could continue the adventure and try to visit a new-to-us spot. We were a little skeptical that it would actually snow much and accumulate, but thought we should at least plan to camp on pavement that night and not on a BLM area where we could get stuck. We ultimately decided to not let the weather keep us from exploring, and chose to head East and then North towards Window Rock, which would mean new roads and a new attractions for us in Arizona. And so we headed confidently in that direction, not ready to let a little snow get in the way of enjoying our last night in our favorite state!