Petrified Forest National Park & Painted Desert- Arizona

What to bring?

Battery Powered Fans

Sunscreen

Baby Hat

Sunglasses

Water Bottle

Ergo Baby Carrier

Hiking Backpack

Picnic Lunch

Picnic Blanket

Stroller?

Possible but not recommended

Restrooms?

At visitors center and Chinde Pointe

This was the last National Park visit of our trip! The Petrified Forest & Painted Desert pretty much run together, making it a single experience. We spent most of the morning there, so expect your visit to be 3-4 hours if you include all of these same stops. We began by driving from our hotel in Holbrook into the Petrified Forest entering from Highway 180. If enter the opposite, from Interstate 40, you may have to follow this itenarary backwards so it’s not confusing! Admission is $20 but is also covered by your America the Beautiful pass. We first stopped at the visitors center for a restroom break and to hike the Giant Logs Trail. This trail was about a mile and winded through huge pieces of petrified wood. Our daughter loved using them as climbing pieces and we learned reading about how they were formed. We used a stroller for the baby but due to a few steps, I’d recommend the carrier.

The next trail we had planned on was a few minutes down the road, called the Crystal Forest that is 0.75 miles. Once we got there though it seemed exactly like the one we just did and there’s only so much petrified wood you can see, so we let the baby keep snoozing and drove on! If you liked the Giant Log Trail or just want to do more exploring, it’d be a good one with kids!

Be sure to pull off and drive the extra 3 mile Blue Mesa Loop. In my opinion, it had the prettiest views. The hills were truly shades of purples and blues, making it such a unique landscape.

When you get back into the main road, make sure to stop at the Newspaper Rock observation point, where you can view Native American markings on the side of a rock. Don‘t expect to get very close to it though(pic below is zoomed in), which was a little bit of a let down. Our little guy was still sleeping so our little girl and her daddy did this stop on their own!

To see more of the Painted Desert, we hiked a portion of the Painted Desert Rim Trail, starting at Kachina Point to Tawa Point and back. It was an easy 1 mile hike with a great view of the Painted Desert the entire way. We put the baby in the hiking backpack to let him try it out, and let our three year old walk (at her request). There are some parts of the trail with a steep bank, so I made sure she stayed close and held her hand at times. Of course, I spent the last quarter of the mile piggy backing her to the car because her legs were too tired (primary reason we usually use the carrier.)

Right near this trailhead, there is a restroom and picnic area called Chinde Point, where we decided to have our picnic lunch before continuing our drive into New Mexico.