Both the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest are about 26 miles east of Holbrook on Interstate 40 where you will find the Painted Desert Visitor's Center.
The western-end of the Painted Desert can be accessed north on US 89 from Flagstaff AZ. Drive north past Cameron, into Tuba City. One could spend several hours meandering along either of these routes, enjoying the views, stopping for photo opportunities and shopping at trading posts and gift shops along the way.
The Painted Desert encompasses over 93,500 acres and stretches over 160 miles. It begins about 30 miles north of Cameron, Arizona near the southeastern rim of the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest about 26 miles east of Holbrook, AZ.
Along the way, it grazes the backyard of the Wupatki National Monument Indian Ruins. The Painted Desert derives its name for the multitude of colors ranging from lavenders to shades of gray with vibrant colors of red, orange and pink. It is a long expanse of badland hills and buttes and although barren and austere, it is a beautiful landscape of a rainbow of colors.
It took millions upon millions of years for nature to create this natural canvas of unimaginable design that some describe it as a multi-colored layered cake. The Painted Desert draws upon the earth’s indecisive nature. From shifts in the earth’s crust brought about by temperamental volcanoes and earthquakes to complete inundation by fresh and sea waters alike, a veritable host of elements have breathed life into this area. Colorful sediments of bentonite clay and sandstone, stacked in elegant layers, feed off the setting Arizona sun in an ever-changing display of colorful splendor.
While life went on here amongst the painted peaks, modern civilization didn’t begin to discover its existence until the 16th century. Spanish explorers who passed through are said to have named it "El Desierto Pintado", when confronted with the colorful horizon. From that point on, with the ancestral inhabitants long vanished, a variety of humans came and went, and in the 1800’s, military personnel, ranchers and tourists would venture on the scene. In 1906, after years of looting the finite supply of petrified wood, selected areas were designated as the original Petrified Forest National Monument.
Painted Desert Visitor Center: 8am-5pm daily Closed December 25th 928-524-3756
Website: http://www.arizona-leisure.com/painted-desert.html
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