Escalante, UT - Petrified Forest State Park Hike

After we finish work . . .

We head to Escalante Petrified Forest State Park

We came to do the Petrified Forest Loop trail along with
the Trail of the Sleeping Rainbows.

It is n uphill start

The Park sits on Wide Hollow Reservoir

A nice little campground

A view down to a cattle ranch

and we continue to march forward

Gary has Tucson as pull assist

 You know I love hikes with stairs!

Almost to the top and the main trail

Quite a view from up here

The trail leads into Cedar woods - all different twisted shapes -
this one like a ribbon

We come to our first petrified wood

The Petrified Forest trail loops back to the left - we continue onto the Sleeping Rainbow trail as we have heard that is where most of the Petrified Wood is

Don't forget to carry lots of water with you on hikes in Utah

We start to see more petrified wood

You can see how the trail became named Sleeping Rainbows

Here we go to the Sleeping rainbows

What goes up must go down

Gary brings up the rear

We take a short break

The views are stunning and there is quite a bit of Petrified Wood along the way

This one had a purple tone

It's a long way down Mom!

Gary takes in the view

Looks like we are going back up now

Some interesting rock along the way

and more beautiful views

Tucson leads the way back

and Gary brings up the rear

I think we are almost back to the main trail

Another stunning backdrop

We can see the Reservoir guess we followed the right trail

A Balanced Rock

Back in the parking lot there is a mostly whole tree

It reseted in a ravine 2 miles south of the Park.  Crews needed heavy machinery to lift and transport the tree segments to the Park.  The base of the tree is estimated to weigh 2 Tons. 

It is said that bad luck follows people who remove the petrified logs.