Petrified Forest Trail – TRNP

Another day, another awesome adventure. TRNP is huge, and after the short hike yesterday, it was out into the hinterland to run/walk the Petrified Forest Trail. It was 17 Kms of pure joy, and the petrified trees were so cool.

https://www.relive.cc/view/v7O9Jz1ZBL6

A little background on the Petrified Forest . . . from https://dakotareflections.com/mountains 2/theod…

“Western North Dakota was a subtropical forest 55 to 67 million years ago. Volcanic eruptions from the west or flooding buried trees similar to the modern Sequoia and bald Cypress trees and the Petrified Forest resulted. The upright nature of the trees in Theodore Roosevelt National Park may or may not have been due to their final resting state. Studies of the volcanic eruption of Mt. St. Helens showed that displaced trees with remaining stumps settled in an upright position in Spirit Lake. The fact that most of the petrified trees are stump may indicate that the lower parts of the trees were buried quickly and that the upper tree sections were exposed and then decayed.”Read more