The Painted Desert: 225 Million Years of Arizona Mud

The Painted Desert has no gate, no entrance station, and no edge you can point to on a map. It is a band of Triassic badlands running across northeastern Arizona, most of it on Navajo land you cannot simply pull over and wander into. The place to see it is the north end of Petrified Forest National Park, off Interstate 40 at exit 311, twenty-five miles east of Holbrook.

What you are looking at is mud. Specifically the Chinle Formation, laid down by enormous rivers between 208 and 225 million years ago. Every colored band is an ancient soil horizon: reds and yellows from iron oxides, purples and grays from manganese. Petrified Forest exposes one of the most continuous sections of Triassic rock anywhere in the world, so you are reading roughly seventeen million years of floodplain, stacked and then cut open.

The turn is that the colors are not fixed. Bentonite clay swells when it takes on water and shrinks when it dries, so the same mesa is a different painting at 9 a.m. than at 4 p.m., and different again the morning after a storm. People drive it once at noon and decide it was fine. Noon is the worst hour it has.

Know before you go

The Painted Desert is free to look at from the interstate and $25 to walk into, which is the seven-day private vehicle fee at Petrified Forest National Park, the one place that protects and interprets a large piece of it. There is no timed entry and no reservation system, but the park is cashless and the road runs 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mountain Standard Time year-round and closes behind you, so this is a daylight trip and not a sunset one. Spring and fall are the seasons; the June 15 to September 30 monsoon brings flash floods and lightning to a landscape where you are the tallest thing standing. Leashed dogs are allowed on every trail and throughout the designated wilderness, which almost no other national park permits.

Painted Desert quick facts

Do you need a permit for the Painted Desert?

For a normal visit, no. Drive up, pay at the gate, go. Day hiking needs no permit anywhere in the park except one spot, and there is no advance booking system to miss out on.

Sleeping out there is a different matter, and it is the best thing on offer. There is no car camping and no RV camping. The only way to spend a night is to walk into the Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area, over 50,000 acres in two units, designated in 1970 and among the first wilderness in the National Park System. The permit is free, one per vehicle, issued in person the day you go at either visitor center, the Painted Desert Inn, or Rainbow Forest Museum, and the counter stops at 4:30 p.m. Camp at least half a mile from your car, groups cap at eight, no fires at all.

The exception is Devil's Playground, a remote pocket of gray, purple, and blue hoodoos. Three permits are released each week, first come first served, on Wednesdays at the Painted Desert Visitor Center only, and you collect yours before noon on the day you hike. They cannot be reserved or held. Three a week is the whole supply.

What is it actually like out there?

The Painted Desert Rim Trail is one mile round trip between Tawa Point and Kachina Point, unpaved, along the top of the escarpment. Best value walking in the park per unit of effort. The badlands drop away north in bands and keep going past anything you can name.

Kachina Point puts you behind the Painted Desert Inn, and this is where it gets strange in a good way. Herbert Lore built it from petrified wood and native stone and had it running by 1924 as the Stone Tree House, on a seam of bentonite clay, so the walls cracked almost immediately. The Park Service bought it and four square miles around it for $59,400 in 1936 and had the Civilian Conservation Corps rebuild it to Lyle Bennett's Pueblo Revival design. Then the Fred Harvey Company: Mary Colter arrived in December 1947 and cut plate glass windows into specific walls to aim the view, and Hopi artist Fred Kabotie painted the dining room and lunchroom with the Buffalo Dance, a trek to a sacred salt lake, planting time, and Tawa, the sun. The clay eventually won. Harvey moved out in 1963 and the park scheduled demolition for 1975 before a public campaign saved the place. National Historic Landmark in 1987, restored to its 1949 look between 2004 and 2006. Free to walk into, and in summer there is an ice cream parlor downstairs.

South of the rim the road turns into a different park. Puerco Pueblo is a paved third-of-a-mile loop through a hundred-room village occupied between A.D. 1200 and 1400, petroglyphs at the south end. Blue Mesa is a one-mile loop dropping off the mesa top into blue-gray bentonite hills. Giant Logs, behind Rainbow Forest Museum, is four tenths of a mile and holds "Old Faithful," a log nearly ten feet wide at the base. This is also the only unit in the National Park System with a segment of historic Route 66 inside it.

Can I bring my dog to the Painted Desert?

Yes, and more freely than almost any national park in the country. Dogs are allowed on any paved road or trail and in all designated wilderness, on a leash six feet or shorter. Only service animals go inside buildings. There is a fenced dog park with separate small and big dog sections next to the Painted Desert Visitor Center lot, and the Bark Ranger program at any entrance booth gets your dog a treat and you a card with the rules.

The catch is the ground. Dark clay badlands, essentially no shade, and summer surface temperatures far above air temperature. Press the back of your hand flat to the trail for seven seconds. If you pull it away, so will your dog.

Bringing kids?

One of the easier national park landscapes for young kids. Nearly every trail is a mile or under, most are paved or groomed, and the Puerco Pueblo loop is stroller friendly. Petroglyphs and logs turned to quartz sell better to a seven-year-old than a viewpoint does.

Two cautions. The rim overlooks have real drop-offs and little railing. And every kid will want to pocket a piece of petrified wood, which is a federal offense anywhere in the park, so head it off early. Shops just outside the boundary sell wood collected legally on private land.

Staying safe in the Painted Desert

Water and shade do not exist off the paved trails. Elevations average about 5,800 feet, and the park recommends a gallon per person per day in summer. Carry all of it in.

Monsoon season runs June 15 through September 30, though the first real storm often holds off until early July. Flash floods come fast in the washes, and the rule is the same as everywhere in Arizona: turn around, do not drown. Lightning is the bigger danger here because you are frequently the tallest object in view, and the roadside shade structures have metal roofs, so they are not shelter. Your car is. Hike mornings and give the afternoon to the storm.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the best place to see the Painted Desert?

The north section of Petrified Forest National Park, entered from Interstate 40 at exit 311 about 25 miles east of Holbrook, Arizona. A paved rim drive links a series of overlooks along the escarpment, and the one-mile Painted Desert Rim Trail between Tawa Point and Kachina Point gives the widest continuous view. It is the one place where these badlands are protected, interpreted, and legally open to walk into.

Is the Painted Desert free to visit?

Seeing it from public highways costs nothing. Entering Petrified Forest National Park costs $25 per private vehicle, $20 per motorcycle, or $15 per person on foot or by bicycle, each valid for seven days. A $45 annual pass covers this park alone, any America the Beautiful pass is accepted, and the park is cashless.

Can you hike in the Painted Desert?

Yes, and off-trail hiking is permitted almost everywhere in the park as long as you are safely and legally parked, which is unusual. No permit is needed for day hiking except at Devil's Playground, which releases three first-come permits each Wednesday at the Painted Desert Visitor Center. Overnight wilderness trips require a free permit obtained in person the same day, before 4:30 p.m.

What is the best time of day to see the Painted Desert?

Early morning or the last hour before the park road closes at 5 p.m. Low sun separates the color bands and throws shadow into the badlands, while midday light flattens the whole thing out. Because the road closes at 5 p.m. Mountain Standard Time, sunrise and sunset are not available from the overlooks unless you are backpacking on a wilderness permit.

How long should you spend at the Painted Desert?

Half a day covers it well. The scenic road runs the length of the park, so you can enter at the Interstate 40 end and exit at the south entrance near Holbrook rather than backtracking, stopping for the rim overlooks, the Painted Desert Inn, Puerco Pueblo, and Blue Mesa along the way. A full day makes sense for a long off-trail walk.

Scratch it off

The Painted Desert is one of 60 destinations on the McSenderson Arizona Outdoor Adventure map, and one of the easiest to earn on a drive most people are already making across I-40. If you are working through the whole state, the 60-stop Arizona bucket list groups them by region so you stop burning days on backtracks. Pair this one with Petrified Forest, which shares the same road, then run west to Meteor Crater or north into Canyon de Chelly for a very different red rock.

Ryan Laboy — Co-founder, McSenderson. Single-digit handicap golfer and ten-year skier based in Flagstaff, Arizona. Researches and designs every McSenderson map. hello@mcsenderson.com