Long Logs

Long Logs is a broad concentration of petrified tree trunks at the foot of gray, banded badlands. It is one of the park's largest displays of petrified wood, and a good stop if you want to walk among the fossils rather than look from the road. The Long Logs loop is listed at 1.6 miles; the 2.6-mile figure is for the combined Long Logs and Agate House outing, so those totals describe different routes.

The trail starts at the Rainbow Forest Museum parking area. Its first half-mile is paved and suitable for strollers and mobility equipment. Beyond that, narrow turns and rough ground mean the rest is not recommended for most wheelchairs. Leave every piece of petrified wood where it lies.

These logs are nearly solid quartz. More than 200 million years ago, trees washed into an ancient river system and were buried. Silica from volcanic ash then crystallized inside their wood and replaced it. Small amounts of iron, carbon and manganese give the quartz its range of colors; cracks in some logs can hold clear quartz, amethyst, citrine or smoky quartz.

The clean breaks can look saw-cut, but the petrified trunks fractured under stress as the Colorado Plateau began rising about 60 million years ago. They broke like glass rods, leaving the sections scattered across the badlands.

For a photo, put a colorful trunk in the foreground and leave the banded hills in the frame behind it. That shows both the fossil wood and the badland setting where the log concentration sits.