Out with the old

The North Dakota Badlands contain a wealth of fossil information that indicate that the park was once on the eastern edge of a flat, swampy area covered with rivers that fanned out into a broad, sea-level delta. This swampy region contained dense forests of sequoia, bald cypress, magnolia, and other water-loving trees growing in or near the shallow waters.

Some forests were buried by flood deposits or volcanic ash falls. When silica-rich water soaked into the trees, organic compounds in the wood were dissolved and replaced by very small crystals of quartz. This is petrification.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park has the third most important collection of petrified wood in North America - who knew?! Located in the portion of the park that is designated wilderness, the petrified wood is found along a 3.5 mile trail that covers some of the most spectacular scenery in the park.

We had to drive outside the park and through private property to reach the trailhead of the Petrified Forest Trail. The Petrified Forest Trail is 3.5 miles into the center of the park's wilderness area where  it meets the Maah Daah Hey Trail ( a 96 mile trail that traverses the rugged Little Missouri Badlands between Sully Creek State Park near the South Unit and ends in the North Unit.). 

There they are, along the side of the trail - prickly pear!

The first mile of the trail was along a high ridge that afforded a view of the badlands.

The petrified wood is first seen about 1.5 miles from the beginning of the trail.

Pretty cool!

Another section of the trail along the high ridge.

At about 2 miles we came to this fantastic area with weird formations and more petrified wood.

That was some huge tree. The one in the background is...

this one close up.

Frederick is there for scale.

These stumps have eroded out of the hillsides ("out with the old") and march out along this valley - they are huge.

We passed by several of these bison "wallows" with tufts of hair in the dirt.

This trail sign-post could not withstand the rubbing of an itchy bison.

Deep into the wilderness area.

The trail along a high ridge.

Another section of fantastic shapes and petrified wood.

On the return trip everything always looks different, even though you are traveling the same trail. You see it from the opposite direction.

A really steep part of the trail.

Back at the Visitors Center we toured the museum where there was this wooded carving of Theodore Roosevelt.

The restored Maltese Cross cabin that Roosevelt used on his first ranch was a substantial, soundly built structure and was moved here, to the Visitor Center, from 7 miles south of Medora.