Escalante Petrified Forest

Visited: April 2018

I had a quick visit to this park in the morning before I taught at the elementary school in Escalante (adorable, by the way). I didn't have to be there until 9:30, late for me, so I got to the park around 8 so I could have a quick jaunt on the trails. What I didn't expect was for a state park to be serious when they said a trail was steep and strenuous, so I was slightly sweaty when I arrived to the school. My bad.

The Petrified Forest Trail is a 1 mile loop that will show you a few pieces of petrified wood, and get you on top of the mesa where you can see the lake below, and great views into the distance among some lava rock. It was eerily similar to every single trail I ran on in my hometown of White Rock, NM. Aside from the petrified wood. It is very unique to have both lava rock (basalt) and petrified wood in the same place naturally!

I decided to add on the Sleeping Rainbow trail, a 0.75 mile extension to the loop that was described as steep and rocky. I worked for the park service and they tend to over exaggerate the difficulty of things, as people tend to overestimate their abilities. But they were notttt kidding. I fell on my butt a couple times because it was so steep on the loose rock. HOWEVER, if you want to see petrified wood, you MUST add on this trail. You only see like 4 logs on the main trail. Just don't do it in a time crunch for you job. Which for 99.9% of people this shouldn't be an issue lol. There were hundreds of pieces of so many colors along the trail. DO NOT TAKE ANY. If you want some petrified wood, stop at the Escalante Rock Shop which you pass on the way to the park. It is in a small yellow building and the very nice man there sells local petrified wood that he obtained legally on private easements.

Something growled at me in the woods, I didn't get a good look at it before it scurried away. I'd say it was either a huge bobcat or small coyote, probably the latter.

This is a seriously underrated park and I would love to go back! If you love geology you should definitely go here.

Looks SO much like the Tsankawi section of Bandelier from the top

One of the logs you'll see on the main trail

The Sleeping Rainbow trail is LITTERED with petrified logs

You'll see this canyon on the Sleeping Rainbow trail

This is every trail I ran in high school

The lake

A super well preserved log

Some of the small pieces you will see (I left it)

The rock shop where you can legally and cheaply buy petrified wood!

Fun fact: I was trying to figure out if petrified wood was sedimentary (deposited in a sedimentary process) or metamorphic (changing from one thing to another), but since it's organic material changing into a rock, it's actually considered a fossil.