What is up everyone. Welcome.
Today I'm at the Petrified Forest National Park.
Gonna be doing some exploring in the park
and checking some things out.
So if you've never been here or you just want to be
straight-up entertained, join us today.
This is one of my favorite places.
So the first thing that I would recommend doing
if you come to visit here, is to go to
this little museum here at the Visitor Center area.
They've got a really nice exhibit there that
educates you on a lot of the stuff around here.
Some of the geology and history of the region.
It actually looks like it might be open too.
I was thinking it wouldn't be open so
I'm thinking they're doing a temperature check there.
I've actually come equipped with a mask.
Try to maintain social distancing and let's go do it.
Here we are in the museum.
They've got some really cool fossils
on display here.
Some more sweet fossils.
This is an aetosaurus
complete with a passenger.
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Oh this is a really cool sign actually.
I was gonna tell you guys about
this later but here's a good visual.
Back when the world was composed of one
supercontinent, Pangea, what is now the
Petrified Forest was on the southwestern
portion of that near the equator.
This used to be a very subtropical region.
We're talking millions of years ago.
Now for the best part.
This is the area right behind the Visitor Center.
I love this area.
There's like a pretty short trail
but look at how many specimens of
petrified wood you have here.
Right here you can grab a trail guide.
Sometimes they ask you to recycle them.
I'm guessing they're not asking you to
do that now because of the pandemic
but I'll keep that as a souvenir.
This is the Giant Logs Trail,
this region behind the Visitor Center,
and I'm gonna kind of read along and I'm gonna pass
along some cool science information to you
if you so choose.
Here's a little map. I mean this is a very short trail.
This is one of several things we're gonna look at today.
Here's the Visitor Center and museum
we were just peeking in.
We're gonna just kind of do a loop it
looks like and see something called Old Faithful
but I don't think it's the Old Faithful
that you might be thinking about.
Look at how large a lot of these specimens are.
I'm curious were these cut
like that or were they just broken?
I'm gonna guess broken
but, yeah, it's just a minefield of petrified wood.
I don't want to confuse you.
I want to be clear.
This little area, the Giant Logs Trail,
this is just a smidgen of this park in this region.
There is so much more to this
so don't you think for a second
that this is it.
We're just getting started.
You can see this trail.
It's not paved so I would say it's not
completely accessible here but it is
very well maintained and clear.
Pretty easy stuff I would say.
Let's start off with maybe the most obvious
question that you might have.
How did this happen?
Like how did all this wood,
petrified wood, get here?
Well, this stuff is approximately 216 million years old
and these trees would have fallen into a
river or rivers and immediately become
covered by volcanic ash and other sediments.
Pretty much halting normal decomposition processes
and then over millions of years
these things became mineralized
and really this is not real wood anymore.
There's no trace of real wood.
They're really stones if you can believe that.
Just look at how huge
these trees would have been.
Look at the detail.
You see the detail of the bark.
I mean it looks like real wood almost.
The only thing that kind of gives
it away from the outside is like this
quartz like shimmer.
Just look at the bark.
I mean that is just crazy the level of detail.
If we look inside though not as detailed
and I'll talk about that a little bit later
but yeah...
Just take one second with me here to appreciate
these are things that existed about
220 million years ago.
Imagine that. I think it's amazing.
You can just see the thickness too of these trees.
Huge.
So this gigantic specimen here behind me
is known as Old Faithful.
I think that's a very fitting name for this one, don't you?
Wow. That is huge.
I'm looking at, like, I assume where the
root system would have began
to give you a good look here close up.
All the coloration...
I'm assuming that's a mixture of quartz.
I don't know if the red comes from iron oxide or not.
I didn't really fully educate myself
but it is beautiful.
All of the colors here.
A lot of variation too.
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So if you're following along so far, step 1 -
Stop here at the museum and Visitor Center,
educate yourself, do the giant Logs Trail next,
get the trail guide, read a little bit
and learn a little bit.
It's absolutely satisfying and one of the
finest stops I would say that you can
make in the park but by no means is this it.
We got other places to go check out next.
One little public service message
I'm going to give you here
is I'm assuming most people are smart
enough to know you probably shouldn't be picking up
any petrified wood and taking it with you here.
It is illegal.
Unfortunately I even saw one person do that back there.
They picked something up and
put it in their pocket back there.
That's not good. Don't go that.
If you really have a hankering for some petrified wood
you can find lots of places, like, for example
right next to the Visitor Center is this
little curios and fountain store.
See what I'm talking about?
Lots of petrified wood.
Very reasonably priced and nicely polished.
That's cool.
Alright, this one's calling to me today.
Extra large. I'm gonna buy this guy.
Alright, I got my awesome t-shirt so I'm happy.
Time to move on down the road.
Moving right along.
I'm making my way down from the Visitor Center.
My car's still parked there.
There's a trailhead here for something called
the Long Logs and the Agate house.
I assume I'm pronouncing that correctly
but I may not so do forgive
if I sound ignorant.
Here's what we're doing here.
Here's that museum we saw earlier.
I'm here.
If I point that way, that's the Visitor Center, all that.
So you see how to get down here.
I don't think a lot of people realize this is here.
So anyway we're gonna hike this trail
and a couple points of interest...
There's this Long Logs Loop
which according to this
is probably just a collection of more petrified trees
and then if we want to
go all the way here to this Agate House.
It's a reconstructed pueblo.
I'm assuming probably hundreds of
years old I'm guessing.
I think made of petrified wood
so it seems like it could be interesting.
That's kind of a cool perspective too.
An aerial view of the Long Logs log jam.
Kind of showing you how the rivers back
at 218 million years ago
collected these trees and then
covered them in sediment.
You kind of get a sense for
what that may have looked like on the river.
I'm not gonna lie. It's pretty warm.
Probably need to reapply some sunblock here soon.
Yeah, very sunny today.
Very early July.
Fourth of July weekend.
Surprised at how not crowded it is really.
I was expecting this place to be packed
and it's not been bad at all.
Probably partially due to the pandemic, I'm guessing.
Maybe that's kept people away or
maybe this isn't a busy time because
it's too hot for a lot of folks.
I don't mind the heat.
I actually like it and
it always keeps the crowds away for other
places so maybe my strategy is working well.
According to this too, by the way,
this is an accessible trail.
That's pretty cool that they made this
come all the way out here.
It is a little bit bumpy and cracked
but not in bad condition.
We are starting to see a lot more
dense collections of petrified
wood the further we go.
I mean just look at that whole field
of them here in front of me.
Stretches almost as far as the eye can see.
Alright, so winding around this trail
way out there I believe is the Agate House.
Let's go see if it's worth doing.
So this is pretty cool.
Cooler than I thought.
It's actually a reconstruction
of an old pueblo.
People were thought to live here
between the years 1050 and maybe 1300s
so this might be a thousand years old
is what that's saying.
This was reconstructed in the 1930s
probably from piles of rubble
and that sign back there says that the reconstruction...
now they know is probably not accurate
because they actually have a window
over there which apparently isn't
the way it would have been built.
You know, in a strange way this is a log cabin.
Think about it.
So there you have it.
The Agate House.
Definitely worth the walk if you have time.
I really enjoyed it a lot more than
I thought I would to be honest.
Just got to take a minute to admire just
how many trees are here.
I don't really have the words.
It's an entire forest full.
So this loop trail is definitely in disrepair.
Lot of cracked concrete so
this, I don't think, is really that fully accessible anymore.
Maybe it was at some time.
A little steep too
but yeah you can you can see for yourself.
So these are long logs for sure.
There's no arguing that.
This is one contiguous piece.
It might be the longest one I've seen today.
Some of the signage at the trailhead
said that this was really an ancient riverbed
just like we saw at the Visitor's Center
and this is just an old log jam.
I assume what they mean is, you know, all these logs
fell into the river
got jammed up
and then the whole process of
petrification took hold
and now it's exposed to us millions of years later
and we're just seeing the remnants of
this ancient log jam.
Walking right through it.
It's a very alien landscape at times too In this park.
You come across this kind of stuff.
Very colorful. Reminiscent of the Painted Desert.
We're gonna see a lot more of that as we continue
but then, yeah, you turn around
and then this field of desolation with all these
fallen trees.
Really cool contrast.
For those of you that have been with
the channel for a while and watching,
you might recall a couple episodes
we did at Valley of Fire.
Some of the attractions
on the east and west sides of the park...
It was a two-parter.
I'll put links in the description down below to those but
I was making kind of light of some
petrified logs you see in the park.
They have a couple stops devoted to like two
or three logs and I kind of laughed to
myself and said hey if you've ever been
to Petrified Forest National Park
you probably could even skip those at Valley of Fire.
Not very impressive compared to this.
Now you all know what I'm talking about.
The best part about this
other than just being completely cool
is that there's nobody over here in this section.
Once again I just think it's not as well-known.
You have to look at your park map
and you'll see that it's right by
the Visitor Center pretty much where you
catch the trail but if you don't look at
that map and pay attention, you're not
going to know it's here.
I would highly recommend if you want
peace and quiet and really to enjoy this
away from the crowds...
I don't know if it's always like this but,
man, this has been amazing.
Probably one of my favorite experiences
in the park so far to date.
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So our next stop is here at the Crystal Forest.
You can see this is a much
more popular destination than the last stop
at Long Logs. By far.
What this is supposed to be is just more
petrified logs in a bad land setting so
the logs should be interspersed amongst a lot of
the colorful purple and gray dirt.
Oh yeah.
This is usually one of the main stops
that I have always made as a tourist
here at the Petrified Forest.
Usually up by the Visitor's Center and
then here and usually that's about as
much time as I have when I day trip it.
so I've been to this section before and
it usually is one of my favorites.
I think more, not because of the logs,
because you see plenty of those everywhere.
It's more of the setting that the logs are in.
This reminds me of some kind of
alien planet that we've landed on recently
devastated by some kind of disaster
maybe a war, maybe a natural disaster
and all that's left are these trees
in a very barren ashen landscape.
Oooooh.
Yeah, to me it is really cool though.
I just love the contrast between the grays
and the blue-purple dirt
and these brown logs.
It all just...
It's very aesthetically pleasing
and just plain cool. Let's face it.
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I'm just trying to keep myself in
between big groups of people.
Stay socially distant and safe as I can
and enjoy the scenery here.
Boy is it hot.
This is also a very short trail.
Three-quarters of a mile long.
No problem.
You know each spot has just got
something really cool about it.
I mean, like I said, the badland features here...
I just love the colors in that dirt
or clay
or conglomerate rock or whatever it is.
I need to educate myself.
I think we're gonna see a lot more of that as we
approach over towards the Painted Desert side.
So cool.
Oh yeah I forgot about these guys.
This is kind of curious.
The coloration on these is much more tan.
It looks more wood-like than the
rest of them, doesn't it?
Yeah, these are my favorite things to see
in the park, I think, are the long logs because you
really just get the sense of the tree itself
and how immense these things were.
That's why I think I like the Long Logs Trail so much.
Had I not seen this long one here,
I may have kind of said
that Long Logs might be my new current
favorite trail but now I'm having a hard time deciding
because this is so neat.
This specimen here.
This may be one of my favorite
petrified logs in the park actually
actually and I've seen it before.
I just forgot about it but it's really cool.
Yeah, this is really neat.
This to me looks like real wood.
It's not.
I assure you it's hard as a rock
and because it is rock
but the way it looks it looks like
someone took a hatchet to it and
they're like whack whack
and all these little wood chips flew everywhere
and we could gather it up for kindling.
It almost looks like you could, like, light this on fire.
It looks like dry rotted wood
but it's not.
Yeah that is... that is...
among my favorite also.
All these tan ones.
I really am curious.
Are they the same tree as the other ones?
Now I'm really struggling and
really trying to decide -
Crystal Forest or the Long Logs.
What do you guys think from what I showed you?
Which one do you prefer?
Yeah this area down here is the
best part including that tan log or logs
up there but this is really where you
really feel that wasteland...
like that badlands feel.
Tons of logs strewn about here.
It's like you can see the tree rings on this one almost.
I'm guessing you are seeing the tree rings.
I do know that some were so well preserved
that they actually can observe
the actual cells of some of these things.
Now they're not living cells. They're not real.
They have been mineralized
but under a microscope, yeah,
you could see cellular structures
of some of these things.
Just imagine that from
over 200 million years ago.
I'm wondering too...
You're either digging this video a lot
because you're like me
and you find this stuff cool
or you are sick of petrified wood at this point
and there's more to come on a future episode.
So I apologize if I've overdone it with
the petrified wood.
I think it just gets better and better.
So if we've sold you on wanting to come to
Petrified Forest and I hope we have
we're gonna help you out here with some planning.
Head on over to cactusatlas.com.
I'll put a link in the description down
below to the exact page
but we've got some information for
you to get you started on your journey
and we even have the weather forecast.
I hope you enjoyed tagging along with me
on the first part of our journey through Petrified Forest.
We're going to continue our journey on a future episode
but if you liked this video
please like, share and subscribe
and always check us out on social media
at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
So many logs!
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you