Hiking With
Your Dog In The Petrified Forest
The mineralized remains of an ancient
Mesozoic Forest were tens of millions of years in the making
but the nation's largest field of petrified wood wasn't formally
described until 1851. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad built
through this area in the 1880s bringing profiteers to the forest.
They carried off petrified wood specimens and dynamited the largest
logs in search of quartz and purple amethyst crystals. In 1895
the state of Arizona began petitioning for federal protection
and on December 8, 1906 Theodore Roosevelt designated the petrified
forest as America's second national monument. In 1962, with the
addition of the scenic landscape of the Painted Desert, the Petrified
Forest became America's thirty-first national park.
Pets are banned from the 93,533 acres of backcountry and the
popular Painted Desert Rim Trail near the Visitor Center but
there is ample opportunity to experience the petrified forest
with your dog. Three paved loops - all less than a mile long
- lead into the barren desert amidst remains of the petrified
forest. Although short and easy to hike, these interpretive trails
are completely without shade so have a supply of water ready
on hot days.
The Crystal Forest Trail meanders through
the remains of obliterated petrified logs, leaving you to only
imagine what these crystalized trees once looked like before
the pillaging that led to the creation of the Petrified Forest
National Monument. Some of those prehistoric trees can be seen
on the Long Logs path. Extinct conifers form the largest concentration
of petrified wood left in the park.
The Agate House Trail leads up a slight
rise to a reconstructed Anasazi Indian Pueblo built entirely
of colorful petrified wood sealed with mud. Also available to
canine hikers is the one-mile Blue Mesa Trail. A sharp drop in
the path leads to an ampitheater surrounded by banded badlands
of bluish clay called bentontite. Rainwater is the brush that
creates streaky patterns in the porous hills.
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