Long Logs & Agate House Trails, Petrified Forest NP - Scenic Hikes on Waymarking.com

Wanna get away from the tourist masses at Crystal Forest and Giant Logs Trail? Here is your chance: Long Logs Trail and Agate House Trail are easy hikes on a paved trail leading to some of the most spectacular exhibits in the Petrified Forest but away from the driveby-spots.

Both trails combine to a 3.6 mile hike. Add another 1.2 miles if you start at the turnoff at
N 34° 48.881 W 109° 51.693 0.1 miles east of the Rainbow Forest Museum.

Long Logs Trail

Picture taken at N 34° 48.665 W 109° 51.379
Click on any picture to get larger images

Long Logs Trail is a 1.2 miles loop, heading east from the trail head, leading through the park's largest concentration of petrified logs. Some of the logs are more than 100 feet long; all are piled in a great logjam, lying criss-crossed atop of each other.

This high, dry land was once a vast floodplain crossed by many streams. Tall, stately conifer trees grew along the banks. Crocodile-like reptiles, giant amphibians, and small dinosaurs lived among a variety of ferns, cycads, and other plants known only as fossils today. Eventually, the trees fell and swollen streams washed them into adjacent floodplains. A mix of silt, mud and volcanic ashes buried the logs. The sediment cut off oxygen and slowed the logs decay. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissues with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood.
Here are some of the longest logs we could find:

Only logs that are at least partially burried reach a lenghts of more than 100 feet. Once the soft sandstone underneath a log is washed out it is only a matter of time until it breaks into smaller pieces like this one:

Crystallized quartz does the most wonderful things to these logs. Here are our two favorites:

Agate House Trail

Picture taken at N 34° 48.308 W 109° 51.379

Agate House trail starts at the same location as Long Logs Trail. It is a 1.2 miles roundtrip trail leading to Agate House, a partial reconstruction of an Indian pueblo built here almost ten centuries ago. What is most interesting about this house is its building material. It is built completely of petrified wood and sealed with mud mortar.

The total trip can be done easily in two hours. It is a great chance to get away from the more touristy spots and it offeres a great insight into the geological and cultural history of this part of Arizona.

Picture location 1: N 34° 48.665 W 109° 51.379 Picture Location 2: N 34° 48.308 W 109° 51.379 Picture Location 3: Not Listed

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