Desert Skies and Petrified Forest

Desert Skies and Petrified Forest 

April 28-30, 2023

We departed our Forest Service campsite near Sedona and drove to Flagstaff.  Having identified a laundromat, we washed a large load of clothing including our sleeping bag liners.  From Flagstaff, we drove on I-40 east to a campground west of Holbrook, AZ.  

It was called Desert Skies Camping.  Following the directions from Google Maps, we found ourselves in the middle of a mini junkyard complete with angry dogs.  After some time a truck raced up and directed us to “site 3”.  The rutted dirt road led to a bare patch of earth marked by a rusted 55-gallon drum/ homemade smoker.  As we stepped out of the car we realized that the wind was pretty strong (20-25 mph).  Setting up the tent was quite challenging.  Once again we needed some extra guy lines to prevent “tent lift off.”  When we started to work on the inside of the tent we realized that a large amount of red dust had blown into the tent.  I became quite despondent.  We seemed to have arrived in a patch of desert with almost no vegetation, no running water and no view (unless you count the trucks zooming along the freeway).  Best of all, the “bathroom” consisted of a port-a-john in one side of a horse trailer.  You can’t make this stuff up!  

After a chilly night, we set off in good time to arrive at the Petrified Forest National Park for opening time.  We entered at the north end and enjoyed a nice walk along the edge of a bluff to the “Painted Desert Inn”.  This building has been extensively restored and has a real 1950’s “travel the west” feel to it.  Following the loop road through the northern section, we were able to stop at numerous overviews giving gorgeous sights of the wilderness area called the painted desert. The road crosses a section of the former Route 66, marked by a abandoned Studebaker and a line of telephone poles.  

The southern section of the park is lower in altitude and is characterized by many eroding mesas, revealing the colorful layers of the Chinle formation. We stopped to see the remains of a native settlement that was occupied from about 1300-1500.  We enjoyed a loop walk through the bad-lands formations called the Blue Mesa.  It was in this area that we started to see the petrified tree sections.  These are truly amazing as the bark is so recognizable yet once you touch it, you know it’s stone.  Many sections are highly colored and some show the growth rings of the original tree.  I wondered that we hadn’t seen any of these “logs” in the northern section.  Our theory is that the south section has eroded further, revealing the trees that were submerged in water and mud and over millions of years, turned to quartz.

After a long day of sightseeing, we drove to Holbrook for dinner, had an excellent Mexican meal and returned to our campsite for another chilly night.  At least the wind had diminished, so there was some reason to be thankful.    

Gloria

Campsite #3 at Desert Skies ... a little bleak !

Tent pitched, Rav 4 positioned as a wind break (useless !) ... We may have viewed this campsite more favorably if the wind hadn't been so strong and it wasn't so dusty. In fairness the owner was very pleasant. He even had his ~ ten year old son and younger sister drive over with a picnic table and chair (on their own!)

One common  feature of much of rural America is that no-one seems to take away the trash

Desert Skies offers a couple of fixed tents through AirBNB. 

The old horse trailer that now functions as a porta-potty

The painted desert in the northern section of Petrified Forest National Park

The beautifulPainted Desert Inn ... now a museum

An old Studebaker marking where Route 66 used to run ... right next to where I-40 is now

The southern section of the park near Blue Mesa

The 1 mile trail trough Blue Mesa was amazing

Bad Lands formations

The path wound its way through a lunar-like landscape

A large section of petrified log. We read in the visitors center that a section that was cut and polished up in Vermont took 4 x times as long to cut as granite - indicating just how hard these quartz fossils are, and why they remain whilst the surrounding sediments are washed away