Dead trees for sale

As you enter the Petrified National Forest, a sign reads "Do not remove petrified wood under penalty of prosecution." At the gate to the park, a ranger sternly warns you that "It is against federal law to remove petrified wood." He then hands you a brochure that adds, somewhat unnecessarily, in my opinion, "Do not remove petrified wood."

The sad irony is that the warnings are not really needed. The vast majority of the petrified wood that could be picked up and carted off is already gone. What remains would typically require a backhoe to steal.

The vandals who did the damage are all long dead. Like many national parks, the Petrified Forest was opened up as a tourist attraction in the late 1800s by a railway company (Santa Fe). The main activity of the tourists was souvenir hunting, and they filled their pockets with so many splinters and sticks that that the area was set aside as a national park in 1910.

Still, there are enough big logs left to make the area very interesting. Millions of years ago, these logs belonged to a jungle. In summertime, they were washed into a flood plain, where tons of silt buried them. Over time, the silt replaced the wood and pressure rendered the logs into quartz. Finally, the land was lifted up, and erosion washed away most of the surrounding sand, leaving the petrified wood exposed. There are three major groupings of these rocks inside the park; all are fitted out with easily accessible walkways.

The main activity of tourists still seems to be the acquisition of petrified wood, however it is done in a slightly different way. Directly outside the park, in every direction, you can find rickety gift shops advertising the stuff. There, the logs sit in vast lots that remind you of auto wrecking yards, divided neatly into sections by size. For a few bucks you can get a paperweight, and for a few thousand, a nicely polished log. Of course, you would need a truck of some size to cart your log away, and a small army of movers to get it situated in your house. But it's a small price to pay for prehistoric contraband.