Colorful stunners

The scenic drive from Silver City, N.M., northward along U.S. 180 brought more of the stunning scenes of forested mountains and broad vistas that separate this region of America from others.

By the time we’d covered the five hours it took to arrive at the entrance to the conjoined Petrified Forest and Painted Desert outside Holbrook, Ariz., the mountains we’d left were distant silhouettes. We were back in Big Sky country where pastel blue and puffy white clouds stretched to the horizons.

The ivory and gunmetal clouds are so well-sketched against the drier high desert, it became entertaining to see who could discover the most interesting figures from the puffier ones. A longer cloud looked to me just like a dog lying on its back. Another was the spitting image of a porpoise. Yeah, I know, our attempt to stay awake and engaged was a nod to childhood days. But creating creatures from clouds kept us more alert than endlessly rehashed radio news or droning dialogues of another book on tape.

Two typically cheesy roadside gift shops promising free petrified wood (and lots of stuff that isn’t) greet visitors just outside the forest entrance. We chose the store to the left and met a nice but stern Navajo woman named Hilda.

Hilda said her family for decades had crafted and polished the ancient wood to the sheen of glass. And did they ever have a big store full of it. Judging from the prices, they are extremely proud of their handiwork. Gathering our free samples and a couple of gifts to avoid appearing like deadbeat gawkers, we moved on.

Hopping out of the car for the unavoidable photo in front of the official park sign, we met Roxanne from France, who snapped the shutter. The entrance waited several hundred yards down the road.

A smiling park ranger from Kansas was in the guardhouse as we pulled to the starting line and revved the engine (lightly), ready to begin the 28-mile loop that also spans the Painted Desert. He advised us of prime stopping points, then we were off into the land of timbers frozen in time by volcanic ash and water 225 million years ago.

We already knew the forest, which became a national park in 1962, is a desert peppered with massive logs that turned to silica-crystallized stone millions of years ago. It contained nine species of trees along with an abundance of other fossils of various plants and vertebrates from the Late Triassic Period.

I found it fascinating that this entire region once was located near the equator as part of the supercontinent called Pangaea. The continent broke up and its parts began drifting about 175 million years ago. That explains how such a rich abundance of large trees and plants wound 5,000 feet up in the high desert of western Arizona.

The first mile or so proved uneventful. Over here was a broken petrified log, over there other fragments. But soon we began seeing dozens of logs, then scores and finally hundreds spread across the landscape on either side of the two-lane road. Several pull-outs with explanatory plaques, or even a park ranger to answer questions, made things more interesting and informed. After all, when you’ve stared at 1,000 petrified logs, you’ve seen ’em all.

The farther north we drove into the Painted Desert, the more colorful and stunning the hills and formations became.

The blended hues in the barren sandstone and mudstone rises and outcroppings range from brick red to gray, and beige, lavender and even peach provided rainbows of muted colors splashed across the desert. These varied bands were caused by thousands of years of mineralized deposits, largely the result of iron and aluminum.

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ventually we arrived, appropriately enough, at Newspaper Rock. Named for the petroglyph drawings and symbols carved into large, flat rocks sometime between 600 and 2,000 years ago, Newspaper Rock is actually several enormous stones containing some 600 human markings. There are images of animals, mystical symbols and unknown subjects imprinted by those who once occupied the valley.

After 45 years of leaving my own marks and etchings at newspapers, I still couldn’t tell what these images were intended to relay. If it was considered “news” to these ancients, as with all news it predictably became stale after a day and certainly impossible to deliver. The fact these rocks are even in the middle of a barren, wind-swept nowhere is what makes them worth seeing.

Although visitors aren’t allowed within 30 feet of the inscribed rocks that rest at angles, we could stand well above and use three sets of mounted binoculars to examine the etched markings. If I squinted, my naked eyes could barely make out some drawings. I could clearly see the universal “Golden Mean” spiral amid the sketches.

The parking lot teemed with vehicles coming and going from at least a dozen states during the 20 minutes we spent.